Geophysical constraint on a relic background of the dilatons

Abstract

According to a scenario in string cosmology, a relic background of light dilatons can be a significant component of the dark matter in the Universe. A new approach of searching for such a dilatonic background by observing Earth's surface gravity was proposed in my previous work. In this paper, the concept of the geophysical search is briefly reviewed, and the geophysical constraint on the dilaton background is presented as a function of the strength of the dilaton coupling, q2b. For simplicity, I focus on massless dilatons and assume a simple Earth model. With the current upper limit on q2b, we obtain the upper limit on the dimensionless energy density of the massless background, ΩDWh2100 ≤ 6 × 10−7, which is about one-order of magnitude more stringent than the one from astrophysical observations, at the frequency of ~ 7 × 10−5 Hz. If the magnitude of q2b is experimentally found to be smaller than the current upper limit by one order of magnitude, the geophysical upper limit on ΩDWh2100 becomes less stringent and comparable to the one obtained from the astrophysical observations.