Speaker
Description
We
present a theoretical investigation of the expected experimental signals produced
by freely falling atoms with time oscillating mass and transition frequency. These
oscillations could be produced in a variety of models, in particular, models of scalar
dark matter nonuniversally coupled to the standard matter such as axionlike
particles and dilatons. Performing complete and rigorous calculations, we show
that, on one hand, two different atomic species would accelerate at a different rate,
and, on the other hand, they would produce a nonzero differential phase shift in
atom interferometers (AI). The former would produce observable signals in
equivalence principle tests like the recent MICROSCOPE mission, and we provide
a corresponding sensitivity estimate, showing that MICROSCOPE can reach
beyond the best existing searches in the axionlike particle case. We also compare
the expected sensitivity of two future AI experiments, namely the AION-10
gradiometer and an isotope differential AI considered for MAGIS-100, that we will
refer to as SPID. We show that the SPID setup would be more sensitive to these
dark matter fields compared to the gradiometer one, assuming equivalent
experimental parameters.
