A Novel Search for Ultralight Dark Matter Using the Breakthrough Listen Public Data Release from the Green Bank Telescope

While significant attention has been paid to a few specific dark matter candidates such as the WIMP and axion, in fact the nature and mass of dark matter is poorly constrained, and thus a broad observational strategy may prove helpful toward its ultimate identification. We have developed a novel model-independent approach which utilizes the recent Breakthrough Listen public data release of three years of observation by the Green Bank Telescope to execute a broad search for ultralight dark matter within our galactic halo. This method assumes only a quasi-monochromatic radio line from decay or annihilation of the dark matter, and additionally that the line exhibits a Doppler shift with position according to the solar motion through a static galactic halo. This approach has been tested on a subset of L-band data, and the analysis of the full L-, S-, C- and X-band dataset (25,000 spectra, 1.1–11.6 GHz) is currently underway.