Correct treatment of the stochastic dark-matter field amplitude in limits · revision history

Revision 2

Accepted · core change · record

Changes against revision 1:

Title
Correct treatment of the stochastic dark-matter field amplitude in limits
Plain
A wave-like dark matter field is a sum of many waves with random phases, so its local strength fluctuates. Searches shorter than the field coherence time can be unlucky, and limits must account for this.
Precise · changed · core
Revision 1: For a virialized ultralight bosonic field with velocity dispersion about $1e-3\,c$, the local amplitude is Rayleigh distributed when the measurement time $T$ is shorter than the coherence time $\tau_c \sim 1e6\,h/(m c^2)$. Determine the correct likelihood and the resulting correction factor to exclusion limits for $T < \tau_c$, including vector polarization and multi-sensor correlations.
Revision 2: For a virialized ultralight bosonic field with velocity dispersion about $10^{-3}\,c$, the local amplitude is Rayleigh distributed when the measurement time $T$ is shorter than the coherence time $\tau_c \sim 10^{6}\,h/(m c^2)$. Determine the correct likelihood and the resulting correction factor to exclusion limits for $T < \tau_c$, including vector polarization and multi-sensor correlations.
Settled by
A derivation of the likelihood validated by simulation and adopted across clock, magnetometer and comagnetometer analyses.
Kind
well-posed
Answer type
value
References
(empty)
Literature status
partially-resolved
Status note
Stochastic-amplitude corrections of up to an order of magnitude were derived for scalar fields around 2021; vector and multi-sensor cases remain incompletely treated.
Posed since
(empty)

Decisions