Abstract
Recently, several studies have pointed out that gravitational-wave detectors are sensitive to ultralight vector dark matter and can improve the current best constraints given by the equivalence principle tests. While a gravitational-wave detector is a highly precise measuring tool for the length difference of its arms, its sensitivity is limited because the displacements of its test mass mirrors caused by vector dark matter are almost common. In this paper, we point out that the sensitivity is significantly improved if the effect of finite light-traveling time in the detector's arms is taken into account. This effect enables advanced LIGO to improve the constraints on the $U(1{)}_{B\ensuremath{-}L}$ gauge coupling by an order of magnitude compared with the current best constraints. It also makes the sensitivities of the future gravitational-wave detectors overwhelmingly better than the current ones. The factor by which the constraints are improved due to the new effect depends on the mass of the vector dark matter, and the maximum improvement factors are 470, 880, 1600, 180, and 1400 for advanced LIGO, Einstein Telescope, Cosmic Explorer, DECIGO, and LISA, respectively. Including the new effect, we update the constraints given by the first observing run of advanced LIGO and improve the constraints on the $U(1{)}_{B}$ gauge coupling by an order of magnitude compared with the current best constraints.
Highlights
While the existence of dark mater has been firmly established by the observations, its identity is still unknown
Several studies have pointed out that gravitational-wave detectors are sensitive to ultralight vector dark matter and can improve the current best constraints given by the equivalence principle tests
The factor by which the constraints are improved due to the new effect depends on the mass of the vector dark matter, and the maximum improvement factors are 470, 880, 1600, 180, and 1400 for advanced LIGO, Einstein Telescope, Cosmic Explorer, DECIGO, and LISA, respectively
Summary
While the existence of dark mater has been firmly established by the observations, its identity is still unknown. What limits the sensitivity of gravitational-wave detectors is that the displacements of the test mass mirrors caused by the vector dark matter are almost common. It makes the length between the mirrors almost constant over. Even if the displacements are completely common, the optical path length of the laser light changes as the test mass mirrors oscillate while the light is traveling in the arm.
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