Ultralight Dark Matter Statistics for Pulsar Timing Detection

Fuente: arXiv
Guardado en:
Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Boddy, Kimberly K., Dror, Jeff A., Lam, Austin
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2025
Materias:
Acceso en línea:
Etiquetas: Agregar Etiqueta
Sin Etiquetas, Sea el primero en etiquetar este registro!
_version_ 1866908669152591872
author Boddy, Kimberly K.
Dror, Jeff A.
Lam, Austin
author_facet Boddy, Kimberly K.
Dror, Jeff A.
Lam, Austin
contents Fluctuations in ultralight dark matter produce significant metric perturbations, which may be detected by monitoring the arrival times of light from millisecond pulsars. While searches using this technique are already underway, they do not consistently account for the statistical properties of the dark matter field. The statistics of this field depend on the velocity dispersion of dark matter and, consequently, its coherence length. In the mass range relevant for pulsar timing arrays, the coherence length is comparable to separations between pulsars, making it crucial to incorporate its effects into the analysis. This work presents a consistent statistical method for gravitational direct detection of ultralight dark matter. Our key result is the derivation of the two-point function of the metric fluctuations, which we apply to pulsar timing and discuss its implementation in future searches.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2502_15874
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Ultralight Dark Matter Statistics for Pulsar Timing Detection
Boddy, Kimberly K.
Dror, Jeff A.
Lam, Austin
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Fluctuations in ultralight dark matter produce significant metric perturbations, which may be detected by monitoring the arrival times of light from millisecond pulsars. While searches using this technique are already underway, they do not consistently account for the statistical properties of the dark matter field. The statistics of this field depend on the velocity dispersion of dark matter and, consequently, its coherence length. In the mass range relevant for pulsar timing arrays, the coherence length is comparable to separations between pulsars, making it crucial to incorporate its effects into the analysis. This work presents a consistent statistical method for gravitational direct detection of ultralight dark matter. Our key result is the derivation of the two-point function of the metric fluctuations, which we apply to pulsar timing and discuss its implementation in future searches.
title Ultralight Dark Matter Statistics for Pulsar Timing Detection
topic High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.15874