Stochastic ultralight dark matter fluctuations in pulsar timing arrays

Abstract

Metric perturbations induced by ultralight dark matter (ULDM) fields have long been identified as a potential target for pulsar timing array (PTA) observations. Previous works have focused on the coherent oscillation of metric perturbations at the characteristic frequency set by the ULDM mass. In this work, we show that ULDM fields source low-frequency stochastic metric fluctuations and that these low-frequency fluctuations can produce distinctive detectable signals in PTA data. Using the NANOGrav 12.5-yr dataset and synthetic datasets mimicking present and future PTA capabilities, we show that the current and future PTA observations provide the strongest probe of ULDM density within the Solar System for masses in the range of <a:math xmlns:a="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><a:mrow><a:msup><a:mrow><a:mn>10</a:mn></a:mrow><a:mrow><a:mo>−</a:mo><a:mn>18</a:mn></a:mrow></a:msup><a:mtext> </a:mtext><a:mtext> </a:mtext><a:mi>eV</a:mi><a:mo>−</a:mo><a:msup><a:mrow><a:mn>10</a:mn></a:mrow><a:mrow><a:mo>−</a:mo><a:mn>16</a:mn></a:mrow></a:msup><a:mtext> </a:mtext><a:mtext> </a:mtext><a:mi>eV</a:mi></a:mrow></a:math>. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

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