![]() “It has very specific properties and is a very specific dark matter that is detectable by clocks,” Safronova said. They settled on this study of ultralight dark matter, which scientists say could make a huge halo-like region, bound to the sun. “It is a beautiful synergy between a quantum expert and particle theorists,” said Tsai, lead author of the Nature Astronomy article, “and we are working on new ideas at the intersection of these two fields." With that kind of technology now available on Earth, Safronova and her collaborators started talking about what sort of questions would be possible to study in space that cannot be done on Earth. ![]() Such “optical” clocks are orders of magnitude more precise and will not lose even a second of time in billions of years. NASA’s 2019 Deep Space Atomic Clock mission demonstrated the best atomic clock in space to date, Safronova said, but different types of clocks - based on much higher frequencies - have been developed in the past 15 years. That is much closer to the sun than what we are proposing here.” “It has nothing to do with quantum sensors or clocks,” she said, “but it showed that you could send a satellite very close to the sun, sensing new conditions and making discoveries. ![]() The probe flew across the sun’s corona for the first time in 2021 and continues to circle closer and closer. “This was inspired by the Parker Solar Probe,” Safronova said, referring to the ongoing NASA mission that sent a spacecraft closer to the sun than any other spacecraft has gone before. They are frequently referred to as “quantum sensors.” The work would be done by atomic, nuclear and molecular clocks that are still under development. ![]() This proposal would send experiments that have been performed on Earth closer to the sun than Mercury, where there could be more dark matter to detect. Putting atomic clocks into the variable gravity environment of space could produce gravity tests that are far more precise - by four orders of magnitude or 30,000 times more precise - than what is possible on Earth. Safronova has been part of other proposals, including one published in July that would link Earth-bound clocks to atomic clocks in orbit and test gravity. Future space clocks could help spacecraft navigate and provide links to Earth-based clocks. 5 in Nature Astronomy, would send two atomic clocks into the inner reaches of the solar system to search for ultralight dark matter, which has wavelike properties that could affect the operation of the clocks.Ītomic clocks, which tell time by measuring the rapid oscillations of atoms, already are at work in space, enabling the Global Positioning System (GPS). Its effects can be observed, but it has not yet been detected directly. Scientists have been trying for decades to understand “dark matter,” the unknown essence that represents an estimated 85% of all matter in the universe. As the precision and portability of atomic clocks continue to improve, University of Delaware physicist Marianna Safronova and collaborators Yu-Dai Tsai of the University of California, Irvine, and Joshua Eby of the University of Tokyo and the Kavli Institute for the Physics and the Mathematics of the Universe, want to put these precision timepieces to work in the quest to find dark matter.
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