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The Global Network of Optical Magnetometers for Exotic physics searches (GNOME)

POSTER

Abstract

Observational evidence strongly suggests that most of the matter in the Universe is a mysterious invisible substance we call dark matter. One hypothesis is that the dark matter consists of ultralight bosons such as axions, with masses far, far smaller than 1 eV [1]. Due to self-interactions, ultralight bosonic fields can form stable, macroscopic configurations in the form of boson stars [2] or domain walls [3]. Even in the absence of self-interactions, bosonic dark matter fields exhibit stochastic fluctuations [4]. Furthermore, cataclysmic astrophysical events (like black hole mergers) may produce intense bursts of bosonic fields [5]. In any of these scenarios, instead of being bathed in a uniform flux of dark matter, terrestrial detectors will witness transient events when the exotic bosonic fields pass through Earth. The Global Network of Optical Magnetometers for Exotic physics searches (GNOME) is an international collaboration to look for such transient events [6-8]. GNOME is a worldwide network of more than a dozen time-synchronized optical atomic magnetometers, with stations in Europe, North America, Asia, the Middle East, and Australia. We report on our recent results [9] and future directions involving alkali/noble-gas comagnetometry [10] to improve the sensitivity of our sensors.

Publication: [1] Derek F. Jackson Kimball and Karl van Bibber, eds. The Search for Ultralight Bosonic Dark Matter (Springer, Cham Switzerland, 2022).<br>[2] D. F. Jackson Kimball, D. Budker, J. Eby, M. Pospelov, S. Pustelny, T. Scholtes, Y. V. Stadnik, A. Weis, and A. Wickenbrock, Searching for axion stars and Q-balls with a terrestrial magnetometer network, Phys. Rev. D 97, 043002 (2018).<br>[3] M. Pospelov, S. Pustelny, M. P. Ledbetter, D. F. Jackson Kimball, W. Gawlik, and D. Budker, Detecting Domain Walls of Axionlike Models Using Terrestrial Experiments, Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 021803 (2013).<br>[4] G. P. Centers et al., Stochastic fluctuations of bosonic dark matter, Nature Communications 12, 7321 (2021).<br>[5] C. Dailey, C. Bradley, D. F. Jackson Kimball, I. A. Sulai, S. Pustelny, A. Wickenbrock, and A. Derevianko, Quantum sensor networks as exotic field telescopes for multi-messenger astronomy, Nature Astronomy 5, 150 (2021).<br>[6] Szymon Pustelny et al., The Global Network of Optical Magnetometers for Exotic physics (GNOME): A novel scheme to search for physics beyond the Standard Model, Annalen der Physik 525, 659 (2013).<br>[7] S. Afach et al., Characterization of the Global Network of Optical Magnetometers to search for Exotic physics (GNOME), Physics of the Dark Universe 22, 162 (2018).<br>[8] Samer Afach et al., What Can a GNOME Do? Search Targets for the Global Network of Optical Magnetometers for Exotic Physics Searches, Annalen der Physik 2023, 2300083 (2023).<br>[9] S. Afach, et al. Search for topological defect dark matter with a global network of optical magnetometers, Nature Physics 17, 1396 (2021).<br>[10] Emmanuel Klinger et al., Optimization of Nuclear Polarization in an Alkali-Noble Gas Comagnetometer, Phys. Rev. Appl. 19, 044092 (2023).

Presenters

  • Sabria Hinton

    California State University, East Bay

Authors

  • Sabria Hinton

    California State University, East Bay

  • Christopher A Palm

    California State University, East Bay

  • Derek F Jackson Kimball

    California State University - East Bay