Analysis method for detecting topological defect dark matter with a global magnetometer network

Publication date: Available online 6 February 2020Source: Physics of the Dark UniverseAuthor(s): Hector Masia-Roig, Joseph A. Smiga, Dmitry Budker, Vincent Dumont, Zoran Grujic, Dongok Kim, Derek F. Jackson Kimball, Victor Lebedev, Madeline Monroy, Szymon Pustelny, Theo Scholtes, Perrin C. Segura, Yannis K. Semertzidis, Yun Chang Shin, Jason E. Stalnaker, Ibrahim Sulai, Antoine Weis, Arne WickenbrockAbstractThe Global Network of Optical Magnetometers for Exotic physics searches (GNOME) is a network of time-synchronized, geographically separated, optically pumped atomic magnetometers that is being used to search for correlated transient signals heralding exotic physics. GNOME is sensitive to exotic couplings of atomic spins to certain classes of dark matter candidates, such as axions. This work presents a data analysis procedure to search for axion dark matter in the form of topological defects: specifically, walls separating domains of discrete degenerate vacua in the axion field. An axion domain wall crossing the Earth creates a distinctive signal pattern in the network that can be distinguished from random noise. The reliability of the analysis procedure and the sensitivity of the GNOME to domain-wall crossings are studied using simulated data.

Source: Physics of the Dark Universe - February 7, 2020 Category: Physics Source Type: research