A network of superconducting gravimeters as a detector of matter with feeble nongravitational coupling
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THE EUROPEAN PHYSICAL JOURNAL D
Regular Article
A network of superconducting gravimeters as a detector of matter with feeble nongravitational coupling? Wenxiang Hu1 , Matthew M. Lawson2,3 , Dmitry Budker4,5 , Nataniel L. Figueroa4,a , Derek F. Jackson Kimball6 , Allen P. Mills Jr.7 , and Christian Voigt8 1 2
3 4 5 6 7 8
School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing, P.R. China The Oskar Klein Centre for Cosmoparticle Physics, Department of Physics, Stockholm University, AlbaNova, Stockholm 10691, Sweden Nordita, KTH Royal Institute of Technology and Stockholm University, Roslagstullbacken 23, Stockholm 10691, Sweden Helmholtz Institut, Johannes Gutenberg-Universit¨ at Mainz, Mainz 55128, Germany Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA Department of Physics, California State University – East Bay, Hayward, CA, USA Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Riverside, CA, USA GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Telegrafenberg, Potsdam, Germany Received 5 February 2020 / Received in final form 31 March 2020 Published online 11 June 2020 c The Author(s) 2020. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com
Abstract. Hidden matter that interacts only gravitationally would oscillate at characteristic frequencies when trapped inside of Earth. For small oscillations near the center of the Earth, these frequencies are around 300 µHz. Additionally, signatures at higher harmonics would appear because of the non-uniformity of Earth’s density. In this work, we use data from a global network of gravimeters of the International Geodynamics and Earth Tide Service (IGETS) to look for these hypothetical trapped objects. We find no evidence for such objects with masses on the order of 1014 kg or greater with an oscillation amplitude of 0.1 re . It may be possible to improve the sensitivity of the search by several orders of magnitude via better understanding of the terrestrial noise sources and more advanced data analysis.
1 Introduction A classic result in Newtonian gravity is that if a small mass is orbiting inside a large mass of uniform density, such that the orbit is entirely contained in the interior of the large mass, the period of the orbit is fixed by the density of the large mass, and independent of the particulars of the orbit. This is because the system can be described as a threedimensional harmonic oscillator. In the case of a mass inside a sphere with uniform density equal to the average density of the Earth, the period of such orbits would be approximately 80 min. Such a scenario is impossible with masses comprised of ordinary matter because of nongravitational interactions. However, the situation could be hypothetically realized if the small mass is comprised of some “hidden matter” (we call it a hidden internal object, HIO) that has only feeble, if any, non-gravitational interactions with normal matter. Furthermore, it is known that such hidden matter exists: evidence from many indepen?
Contribution to the Topical Issue “Quantum Techn
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