The possibility of detecting Dark Matter with Gravitational Wave Interferometers

Ting-Yi Liang^1*, Hsiang-Chieh Hsu¹, Hao-Yen Chang¹, Jia-Shian Wang¹, Henry Tsz-King Wong¹, Chun-Hao Lee², Bo-Yu Lin², Martin Spinrath², Miftahul Ma'arif³, Reinard Primulando⁴

¹Institute of Physics, Academia Sinica, Taipei City, Taiwan
²Department of Physics, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu City, Taiwan
³Department of Physics, National Central University, Taoyuan City, Taiwan
⁴Center for TheoreticPhysics, Department of Physics, Parahyangan Catholic University, Bandung, Indonesia

* Presenter:Ting-Yi Liang, email:tingyiliang@as.edu.tw

We investigate the feasibility of detecting dark matter (DM) with large-scale gravitational-wave detectors. Focusing on kilogram-scale DM that couples to matter via a Yukawa-like long-range interaction, we model the transient forces exerted on LIGO’s mirrors as a DM object traverses the interferometer, producing a measurable strain signal. Our study has two components: (i) building a template bank by simulating waveforms over a broad set of physical and kinematic parameters, and (ii) searching LIGO Open Data for these signals using matched filtering, complemented by machine-learning–based classifiers. This framework enables a systematic hunt for DM-induced transients and, in the absence of a detection, constraints on the interaction strength and range.

Keywords: LIGO, GW Data Analysis, Dark Matter