Analysis method for detecting topological defect dark matter with a global magnetometer network
Abstract
The 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 is studied using simulated data.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1912.08727,
title = {Analysis method for detecting topological defect dark matter with a global magnetometer network},
author = {Hector Masia-Roig and Joseph A. Smiga and Dmitry Budker and Vincent Dumont and Zoran Grujic and Dongok Kim and Derek F. Jackson Kimball and Victor Lebedev and Madeline Monroy and Szymon Pustelny and Theo Scholtes and Perrin C. Segura and Yannis K. Semertzidis and Yun Chang Shin and Jason E. Stalnaker and Ibrahim Sulai and Antoine Weis and Arne Wickenbrock},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1912.08727},
year = {2020}
}