<p>Motivated by the future prospects of the Windchime project, we show that even a small prototype array of 7 commercial accelerometers can be used to calculate dark matter limits for the well-known B − L coupled dark photon. As a member of the ultralight sector, the dark photon would be observed in high occupancy as a persistent plane wave characterized by de Broglie wavelength and coupling to the standard model via a hypothesized baryon minus lepton quantum number, g_B−L. Such an interaction can be probed by measuring the differential force or acceleration between two bodies of differing B −L charge-to-mass ratios. This is accomplished for a 7 sensor array of MEMS accelerometers by rigidly coupling all the sensors to a material of known B − L charge. Using a log-likelihood ratio test and Fourier transformed data from the prototype array, we are able to set a limit on g_B−L ∼ 10^−11 within a mass range of 10^{−13}−10^{−12}eV . Setting these noncompetitive limits with real data serves as a proof-of-principle demonstration of the limit-setting procedure used in Windchime future projections for B − L coupled ultralight dark matter. Additionally, this basic setup could be used for future studies on the properties of a detector array. </p>
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:purdue.edu/oai:figshare.com:article/23262071 |
| Date | 13 June 2023 |
| Creators | Abigail Rae Hickin (15987782) |
| Source Sets | Purdue University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, Thesis |
| Rights | CC BY 4.0 |
| Relation | https://figshare.com/articles/thesis/Deriving_Ultralight_Dark_Matter_Limits_with_a_Prototype_Array_of_Mechanical_Accelerometers/23262071 |
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