Pulsars Hunt Dark Matter: What the Search Revealed ⚡ экспресс
A Bayesian search for ultralight dark matter signals (with masses around 10⁻²² eV) was performed in data from the PPTA-DR3 and EPTA-DR2 pulsar timing arrays. Two types of signatures were considered: an oscillating gravitational potential from a scalar field, and a fifth-force interaction for dark photons. To account for matter density, distances to the pulsars were included in the analysis. No statistically significant detection was made, and 95% upper limits were placed on the model parameters. For the scalar scenario, the possibility that such matter makes up all the dark matter is not ruled out. The PPTA-DR3 constraints are significantly improved over DR2 and are consistent with uncorrelated limits from other arrays. For the first time, constraints on dark photons have been obtained from EPTA data, which are comparable to existing ones.
The universe is full of invisible stuff — dark matter. We feel its gravity, but what is it made of? Perhaps it’s an ocean of ultralight particles, so tiny in mass that they act more like waves than particles. To sense this cosmic ripple, scientists turned to the most precise beacons — pulsars.
Pulsars are the remains of massive stars, crushed to city-size and spinning hundreds of times a second. Their radio beams pierce space with the regularity of atomic clocks. If a wave of dark matter washed through them, that flawless beat would falter.
Years of observation found no deviations. But for the first time, limits were set for two such forms of matter: ultralight particles and dark photons.
🎯 Ultralight dark matter particles are billions of times lighter than an electron — so small that their behavior resembles waves more than familiar particles.