Gravimeter Search for Compact Dark Matter Objects Moving in the Earth

Abstract

Dark matter could be composed of compact dark objects (CDOs). These objects may interact very weakly with normal matter and could move freely inside the Earth. A CDO moving in the inner core of the Earth will have an orbital period near 55 min and produce a time dependent signal in a gravimeter. Data from superconducting gravimeters rule out such objects moving inside the Earth unless their mass mD and or orbital radius a are very small so that mD a < 1.2 × 10 −13 M⊕R⊕.Here M⊕ and R⊕ are the mass and radius of the Earth.

Testing gravity with cold atom interferometry: results and prospects

“…Data from a network of sensitive superconducting gravimeters were analyzed in [334][335][336] searching for time-dependent signals that would be produced when dark matter interacts with the Earth. In this frame, also atom interferometry gravimeters could be used [337].…”

Gravity Field, Time Variations from Surface Measurements

“…Boy; 1 mGal ¼ 10 nm s À2 ). Note that the amplitude of the diurnal and semi-diurnal solid tides and the ocean tidal loading would be ten times larger than plotted amplitudes, which are only long-period tides detection of gravitational waves (Coughlin and Harms 2014) or dark matter (Horowitz and Widmer-Schnidrig 2020).…”

A network of superconducting gravimeters as a detector of matter with feeble nongravitational coupling

“…During the preparation of this manuscript, we became aware of a similar work [13]. While the basic idea and approach of reference [13] are close to ours, the specifics are different and complementary.…”