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Clocking dark matter: optical clocks join the hunt for dark matter. (Courtesy: N Hanacek/NIST)

Topics: Dark Matter, Modern Physics, Quantum Mechanics

An optical clock has been used to set new constraints on a proposed theory of dark matter. Researchers including Jun Ye at JILA at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and Andrei Derevianko at the University of Nevada, Reno, explored how the coupling between regular matter and “ultralight” dark matter particles could be detected using the clock in conjunction with an ultra-stable optical cavity. With future upgrades to the performance of optical clocks, their approach could become an important tool in the search for dark matter.

Although it appears to account for about 85% of the matter in the universe, physicists know very little about dark matter. Most theoretical and experimental work so far has been focussed on hypothetical dark-matter particles, including WIMPS and axions, which have relatively large masses.  Alternatively, some physicists have proposed the existence of “ultralight” dark matter particles with extremely small masses that span many orders of magnitude (10⁻¹⁶–10⁻²¹ eV/c²).

According to the laws of quantum mechanics, the very smallest of these particles would have huge wavelengths, comparable to the sizes of entire dwarf galaxies – meaning they would behave like classical fields on scales we can easily measure.

Optical clock sets new constraints on dark matter, Sam Jarman, Physics World