Work

Listening for ultraheavy dark matter with underwater acoustic detectors

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Ultraheavy dark matter candidates evade traditional direct detection experiments due to their low particle flux. We explore the potential of large underwater acoustic arrays, originally developed for ultrahigh energy neutrino detection, to detect ultraheavy dark matter interactions. These particles deposit energy via nuclear scattering while traversing seawater, generating thermoacoustic waves detectable by hydrophones. We present the first robust first-principles calculation of dark matter-induced acoustic waves, establishing a theoretical framework for signal modeling and sensitivity estimates. Our framework incorporates frequency-dependent attenuation effects, including viscous and chemical relaxation, not considered in previous calculations. A sensitivity analysis for a hypothetical 100 km 3 hydrophone array in the Mediterranean Sea demonstrates that such an array could extend sensitivity to the previously unexplored mass range of 0.1 − 10 μ g ( ∼ 10 20 – 10 23 GeV ), with sensitivity to both spin-independent and spin-dependent interactions. Our results establish acoustic detection as a complementary dark matter search method, enabling searches in existing hydrophone data and informing future detector designs.

Source: Physical review. D/Physical review. D.

DOI: 10.1103/jpzr-msx1

Authors: Damon Cleaver, Christopher McCabe, Ciaran A. J. O’Hare

Institutions: King's College London, ARC Centre of Excellence for Dark Matter Particle Physics

Language: English

Topic: Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena

Subfield: Nuclear and High Energy Physics

Field: Physics and Astronomy

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: hybrid

Funders: Science and Technology Facilities Council, Australian Research Council

Award: Unmasking dark matter: from the laboratory to the Milky Way