Constraints on conformal ultralight dark matter couplings from the European Pulsar Timing Array

Abstract

Millisecond pulsars are extremely precise celestial clocks: as they rotate, the beamed radio waves emitted along the axis of their magnetic field can be detected with radio telescopes, which allows for tracking subtle changes in the pulsars' rotation periods. A possible effect on the period of a pulsar is given by a potential coupling to dark matter, in cases where it is modeled with an "ultralight" scalar field. In this paper, we consider a universal conformal coupling of the dark matter scalar to gravity, which in turn mediates an effective coupling between pulsars and dark matter. If the dark matter scalar field is changing in time, as expected in the Milky Way, this effective coupling produces a periodic modulation of the pulsar rotational frequency. By studying the time series of observed radio pulses collected by the European Pulsar Timing Array experiment, we present constraints on the coupling of dark matter, improving on existing bounds. These bounds can also be regarded as constraints on the parameters of scalar-tensor theories of the Fierz-Jordan-Brans-Dicke and Damour-Esposito-Farèse types in the presence of a (light) mass potential term.

arXiv comment17 pages, 5 figures, Updated plots, matching published version

References in corpus (76)

• Dark Matter Substructure in Galactic Halos
• Where are the missing galactic satellites?
• The equation of state for nucleon matter and neutron star structure
• String Axiverse
• PSR J0030+0451 Mass and Radius from NICER Data and Implications for the Properties of Neutron Star Matter
• Cold and Fuzzy Dark Matter
• Ultralight scalars as cosmological dark matter
• Axions In String Theory
• The NANOGrav 15-year Data Set: Evidence for a Gravitational-Wave Background
• Too big to fail? The puzzling darkness of massive Milky Way subhaloes
• A unified equation of state of dense matter and neutron star structure
• The String Dilaton and a Least Coupling Principle
• Search for an isotropic gravitational-wave background with the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array
• Searching for the nano-Hertz stochastic gravitational wave background with the Chinese Pulsar Timing Array Data Release I
• Tests of general relativity from timing the double pulsar
• The second data release from the European Pulsar Timing Array III. Search for gravitational wave signals
• Observational and Theoretical Constraints on Singular Dark Matter Halos
• The NANOGrav 15-year Data Set: Search for Signals from New Physics
• The NANOGrav 12.5-year Data Set: Search For An Isotropic Stochastic Gravitational-Wave Background
• Tempo2, a new pulsar timing package. II: The timing model and precision estimates
• Cuspy No More: How Outflows Affect the Central Dark Matter and Baryon Distribution in Lambda CDM Galaxies
• The Cores of Dwarf Galaxy Halos
• Tensor-scalar gravity and binary-pulsar experiments
• Understanding the Core-Halo Relation of Quantum Wave Dark Matter, $\psi$DM, from 3D Simulations
• The Parkes Pulsar Timing Array Project
• First constraints on fuzzy dark matter from Lyman-$\alpha$ forest data and hydrodynamical simulations
• High-precision timing of 42 millisecond pulsars with the European Pulsar Timing Array
• A search for ultra-light axions using precision cosmological data
• The North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves
• Forged in FIRE: cusps, cores, and baryons in low-mass dwarf galaxies
• The Impact of Baryonic Physics on the Structure of Dark Matter Halos: the View from the FIRE Cosmological Simulations
• The Dark Matter Halo of the Milky Way, AD 2013
• On the evidence for a common-spectrum process in the search for the nanohertz gravitational-wave background with the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array
• A millisecond pulsar in a stellar triple system
• The second data release from the European Pulsar Timing Array I. The dataset and timing analysis
• Strong bound on canonical ultra-light axion dark matter from the Lyman-alpha forest
• Dark matter cores all the way down
• Constraining the mass of light bosonic dark matter using SDSS Lyman-$\alpha$ forest
• Common-red-signal analysis with 24-yr high-precision timing of the European Pulsar Timing Array: Inferences in the stochastic gravitational-wave background search
• Strong-field Gravity Tests with the Double Pulsar
• Lyman-alpha Constraints on Ultralight Scalar Dark Matter: Implications for the Early and Late Universe
• Pulsar timing signal from ultralight scalar dark matter
• A Baryonic Solution to the Missing Satellites Problem
• Gravitational radiation from compact binary systems in the massive Brans-Dicke theory of gravity
• On Pulsar Distance Measurements and their Uncertainties
• Strong Constraints on Fuzzy Dark Matter from Ultrafaint Dwarf Galaxy Eridanus II
• Galactic Rotation Curves vs. Ultra-Light Dark Matter: Implications of the Soliton -- Host Halo Relation
• On measuring the gravitational-wave background using Pulsar Timing Arrays
• TempoNest: A Bayesian approach to pulsar timing analysis
• The MeerKAT Telescope as a Pulsar Facility: System verification and early science results from MeerTime
• Testing the universality of free fall by tracking a pulsar in a stellar triple system
• The relativistic pulsar-white dwarf binary PSR J1738+0333 I. Mass determination and evolutionary history
• Lyman-$\alpha$ forest and non-linear structure characterization in Fuzzy Dark Matter cosmologies
• Ultra-Light Dark Matter Resonates with Binary Pulsars
• The Mass of a Millisecond Pulsar
• Parkes Pulsar Timing Array constraints on ultralight scalar-field dark matter
• Constraining nonperturbative strong-field effects in scalar-tensor gravity by combining pulsar timing and laser-interferometer gravitational-wave detectors
• Identifying and mitigating noise sources in precision pulsar timing data sets
• The second data release from the European Pulsar Timing Array II. Customised pulsar noise models for spatially correlated gravitational waves
• Realistic sensitivity curves for pulsar timing arrays
• All correlations must die: Assessing the significance of a stochastic gravitational-wave background in pulsar-timing arrays
• The second data release from the European Pulsar Timing Array: VI. Challenging the ultralight dark matter paradigm
• Narrowing the mass range of Fuzzy Dark Matter with Ultra-faint Dwarfs
• An improved test of the strong equivalence principle with the pulsar in a triple star system
• Observability of Dark Matter Substructure with Pulsar Timing Correlations
• Closing a spontaneous-scalarization window with binary pulsars
• On the possibility of setting a new constraint to scalar-tensor theories
• Secular effects of Ultralight Dark Matter on Binary Pulsars
• PSR J1012+5307: a millisecond pulsar with an extremely low-mass white dwarf companion
• Cosmological Simulation for Fuzzy Dark Matter Model
• Solar System Constraints on Scalar-Tensor Gravity with Positive Coupling Constant upon Cosmological Evolution of the Scalar Field
• The Dark Matter Distribution in the Spiral $NGC3198$ out to 0.22 $R_{vir}$
• Observational constraints on the Internal Structure and Dynamics of the Vela Pulsar
• Searching for dilaton fields in the Ly$\alpha$ forest
• Angular momentum sensitivities in scalar-tensor theories
• The progenitor of binary millisecond radio pulsar PSR J1713+0747 (Research Note)

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Gravitational wave probes of particle dark matter: a review
• Probing Ultralight Axion-like Dark Matter: A Pulsar Timing Arrays-Pulsar Polarization Arrays Synergy
• Probing supermassive black hole scalarization with Pulsar Timing Arrays
• Probing Quadratically Coupled Ultralight Dark Matter with Pulsar Timing Arrays