English

Detecting ultralight dark matter in the Galactic Center with pulsars around Sgr A*

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena 2025-10-28 v1 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology High Energy Physics - Phenomenology

Abstract

Ultralight dark matter (ULDM) model is a leading dark matter candidate that arises naturally in extensions of the Standard Model. In the Galactic Center, ULDM manifests as dense hydrogen-like boson clouds or self-gravitating soliton cores. We present the first study of the gravitational effects of these ULDM structures on pulsar orbits around Sgr A*, using pulsar timing as a precision dynamical probe, based on a comprehensive and practical framework that includes various kinds of black hole and orbital parameters. Our analysis shows that long-term pulsar monitoring -- one of the key objectives of future SKA science -- could detect a boson cloud with a total mass as low as O(M)O(M_\odot) for boson mass m1018eVm \sim 10^{-18}\,\mathrm{eV}, and probe a wide range of soliton core masses in the lower-mass regime, assuming a conservative timing precision of σTOA=1ms\sigma_{\mathrm{TOA}}=1\,\mathrm{ms}.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2510.22573,
  title  = {Detecting ultralight dark matter in the Galactic Center with pulsars around Sgr A*},
  author = {Jiang-Chuan Yu and Yan Cao and Zexin Hu and Lijing Shao},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2510.22573},
  year   = {2025}
}