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1. Constraints on bosonic dark matter from ultralow-field nuclear magnetic resonance

   https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aax4539  

   Garcon, Antoine; Blanchard, John W.; Centers, Gary P.; Figueroa, Nataniel L.; Graham, Peter W.; Jackson Kimball, Derek F.; Rajendran, Surjeet; Sushkov, Alexander O.; Stadnik, Yevgeny V.; Wickenbrock, Arne; et al (October 2019, Science Advances)

   The nature of dark matter, the invisible substance making up over 80% of the matter in the universe, is one of the most fundamental mysteries of modern physics. Ultralight bosons such as axions, axion-like particles, or dark photons could make up most of the dark matter. Couplings between such bosons and nuclear spins may enable their direct detection via nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy: As nuclear spins move through the galactic dark-matter halo, they couple to dark matter and behave as if they were in an oscillating magnetic field, generating a dark-matter–driven NMR signal. As part of the cosmic axion spin precession experiment (CASPEr), an NMR-based dark-matter search, we use ultralow-field NMR to probe the axion-fermion “wind” coupling and dark-photon couplings to nuclear spins. No dark matter signal was detected above background, establishing new experimental bounds for dark matter bosons with masses ranging from 1.8 × 10 −16 to 7.8 × 10 −14 eV. 

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2. Resonant shattering flares as asteroseismic tests of chiral effective field theory

   https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.111.015809  

   Neill, Duncan; Tsang, David; Drischler, Christian; Holt, Jeremy W; Newton, William G (January 2025, Physical Review C)

   Chiral effective field theory ( $\chi \mathrm{EFT}$) has proved to be a powerful microscopic framework for predicting the properties of neutron-rich nuclear matter with quantified theoretical uncertainties up to about twice the nuclear saturation density. Tests of $\chi \mathrm{EFT}$predictions are typically performed at low densities using nuclear experiments, with neutron star (NS) constraints only being considered at high densities. In this work, we discuss how asteroseismic quasinormal modes within NSs could be used to constrain specific matter properties at particular densities not just the integrated quantities to which bulk NS observables are sensitive. We focus on the crust-core interface mode, showing that measuring this mode's frequency would provide a meaningful test of $\chi \mathrm{EFT}$at densities around half the saturation density. Conversely, we use nuclear matter properties predicted by $\chi \mathrm{EFT}$to estimate that this mode's frequency is around $185\pm 50\text{Hz}$. Asteroseismic observables such as resonant phase shifts in gravitational-wave signals and multimessenger resonant shattering flare timings, therefore, have the potential to provide useful tests of $\chi \mathrm{EFT}$. Published by the American Physical Society2025 

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3. Gusts in the headwind: uncertainties in direct dark matter detection

   https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stac2447  

   Lawrence, Grace E; Duffy, Alan R; Blake, Chris A; Hopkins, Philip F (July 2023, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society)

   ABSTRACT We use high-resolution, hydrodynamic, galaxy simulations from the Latte suite of FIRE-2 simulations to investigate the inherent variation of dark matter in sub-sampled regions around the Solar Circle of a Milky Way-type analogue galaxy and its impact on direct dark matter detection. These simulations show that the baryonic back reaction, as well as the assembly history of substructures, has lasting impacts on the dark matter’s spatial and velocity distributions. These are experienced as ‘gusts’ of dark matter wind around the Solar Circle, potentially complicating interpretations of direct detection experiments on Earth. We find that the velocity distribution function in the galactocentric frame shows strong deviations from the Maxwell Boltzmann form typically assumed in the fiducial Standard Halo Model, indicating the presence of high-velocity substructures. By introducing a new numerical integration technique that removes any dependencies on the Standard Halo Model, we generate event-rate predictions for both single-element Germanium and compound Sodium Iodide detectors, and explore how the variability of dark matter around the Solar Circle influences annual modulation signal predictions. We find that these velocity substructures contribute additional astrophysical uncertainty to the interpretation of event rates, although their impact on summary statistics, such as the peak day of annual modulation, is generally low. 

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4. Constraints on ultralight scalar dark matter with quadratic couplings

   https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP03(2023)104  

   Bouley, Thomas; Sørensen, Philip; Yu, Tien-Tien (March 2023, Journal of High Energy Physics)

   A bstract Ultralight dark matter is a compelling dark matter candidate. In this work, we examine the impact of quadratically-coupled ultralight dark matter on the predictions of Big Bang Nucleosynthesis. The presence of ultralight dark matter can modify the effective values of fundamental constants during Big Bang Nucleosynthesis, modifying the predicted abundances of the primordial elements such as Helium-4. We improve upon the existing literature in two ways: firstly, we take into account the thermal mass acquired by the ultralight dark matter due to its quadratic interactions with the Standard Model bath, which affects the cosmological evolution of the dark matter. Secondly, we treat the weak freeze-out using the full kinetic equations instead of using an instantaneous approximation. Both improvements were shown to impact the Helium-4 prediction in the context of universally-coupled dark matter in previous work. We extend these lessons to more general couplings. We show that with these modifications, Big Bang Nucleosynthesis provides strong constraints of ultralight dark matter with quadratic couplings to the Standard Model for a large range of masses as compared to other probes of this model, such as equivalence principle tests, atomic and nuclear clocks, as well as astrophysical and other cosmological probes. 

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5. Precision Measurement Noise Asymmetry and Its Annual Modulation as a Dark Matter Signature

   https://doi.org/10.3390/universe7030050  

   Roberts, Benjamin M.; Derevianko, Andrei (March 2021, Universe)

   null (Ed.)

   Dark matter may be composed of self-interacting ultralight quantum fields that form macroscopic objects. An example of which includes Q-balls, compact non-topological solitons predicted by a range of theories that are viable dark matter candidates. As the Earth moves through the galaxy, interactions with such objects may leave transient perturbations in terrestrial experiments. Here we propose a new dark matter signature: an asymmetry (and other non-Gaussianities) that may thereby be induced in the noise distributions of precision quantum sensors, such as atomic clocks, magnetometers, and interferometers. Further, we demonstrate that there would be a sizeable annual modulation in these signatures due to the annual variation of the Earth velocity with respect to dark matter halo. As an illustration of our formalism, we apply our method to 6 years of data from the atomic clocks on board GPS satellites and place constraints on couplings for macroscopic dark matter objects with radii R<104km, the region that is otherwise inaccessible using relatively sparse global networks. 

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