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arXiv · 2606.09210

Optimising ultra-light dark matter searches with ground-based interferometers

Paola C. M. Delgado·Ornella J. Piccinni·Federico R. Urban
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Abstract

Ultra-light dark matter fields induce nearly monochromatic signals in gravitational-wave detectors through their coupling to the Standard Model. Their spectral morphology exhibits features caused by sidereal modulation that, for frequencies below $\sim 30~$Hz, enable discrimination between spin-1 and spin-2 ultra-light dark matter signals, provided sufficient signal-to-noise ratio. In the context of LIGO--Virgo--KAGRA search techniques, we show that incorporating these spectral features can improve current excess-power constraints at low frequencies by up to $\sim36\%$. Additionally, we propose an optimised implementation of the cross-correlation statistics within the Band-Sampled-Data framework, enhancing the sensitivity of cross-correlation searches across nearly the entire frequency range, reaching up to $\sim42\%$ at low frequencies and $\sim35\%$ at high frequencies.

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Paola C. M. Delgado, Ornella J. Piccinni, Federico R. Urban. 2026-06-08. Optimising ultra-light dark matter searches with ground-based interferometers. https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.09210

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