Kavli Affiliate: Peter W. Graham
| First 5 Authors: Sebastian Baum, Michael A. Fedderke, Peter W. Graham, ,
| Summary:
Dark compact objects ("clumps") transiting the Solar System exert
accelerations on the test masses (TM) in a gravitational-wave (GW) detector. We
reexamine the detectability of these clump transits in a variety of current and
future GW detectors, operating over a broad range of frequencies. TM
accelerations induced by clump transits through the inner Solar System have
frequency content around $f sim mu$Hz. Some of us [arXiv:2112.11431] recently
proposed a GW detection concept with $mu$Hz sensitivity, based on
asteroid-to-asteroid ranging. From the detailed sensitivity projection for this
concept, we find both analytically and in simulation that purely gravitational
clump-matter interactions would yield one detectable transit every $sim 20$
yrs, if clumps with mass $m_{text{cl}} sim 10^{14} text{kg}$ saturate the
dark-matter (DM) density. Other (proposed) GW detectors using local TMs and
operating in higher frequency bands are sensitive to smaller clump masses and
have smaller rates of discoverable signals. We also consider the case of clumps
endowed with an additional attractive long-range clump-matter fifth force
significantly stronger than gravity (but evading known fifth-force
constraints). For the $mu$Hz detector concept, we use simulations to show
that, for example, a clump-matter fifth-force $sim 10^3$ times stronger than
gravity with a range of $simtext{AU}$ would boost the rate of detectable
transits to a few per year for clumps in the mass range $10^{11} text{kg}
lesssim m_{text{cl}} lesssim 10^{14} text{kg}$, even if they are a $sim
1$% sub-component of the DM. The ability of $mu$Hz GW detectors to probe
asteroid-mass-scale dark objects that may otherwise be undetectable bolsters
the science case for their development.
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