Mechanical Sensors for Planck-scale Dark Matter Searches via Long-range Forces

Published

February 14, 2025

Author(s)

Jacob Taylor, Juehang Qin, Dorian Amaral, sunil bhave, Erqian Cai, Daniel Carney, Raphael Lang, Shengchao Li, Claire Marvinney, Alberto Marino, Jared Newton, Christopher Tunnell

Abstract

Dark matter candidates with masses around the Planck-scale are theoretically well-motivated and have been the subject of numerous studies; it has also been suggested that it might be possible to search for dark matter solely via gravitational interactions in this mass range. In this work, we explore the pathway towards searching for dark matter candidates with masses around the Planck-scale using mechanical sensors while considering realistic experimental constraints. These dark matter particles are expected to leave tracks as their signature in mechanical sensor arrays, and we show that we can effectively search for such tracks using statistical approaches to trackfinding. We compute sensitivity projections for various experimental setups and show what it would take to probe Planck-scale dark matter via the gravitational interaction alone. We show that probing Planck-scale dark matter gravitationally would be exceedingly difficult, requiring > 70 dB of quantum noise reduction even with a 1003 sensor array, contrary to current thinking in the field. Despite this, we can expect to cover significant regions of new parameter space on the allowed interaction strength with experimental setups that are realisable with current techniques if dark matter couples to standard model particles via a long-range fifth-force.

Citation

Physical Review D (Particles, Fields, Gravitation and Cosmology)

Pub Type

Journals

Keywords

Dark matter, optomechanics, quantum sensing

Citation

Taylor, J. , Qin, J. , Amaral, D. , Bhave, S. , Cai, E. , Carney, D. , Lang, R. , Li, S. , Marvinney, C. , Marino, A. , Newton, J. and Tunnell, C. (2025), Mechanical Sensors for Planck-scale Dark Matter Searches via Long-range Forces, Physical Review D (Particles, Fields, Gravitation and Cosmology) (Accessed April 13, 2025)