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Gravimeter Search for Compact Dark Matter Objects Moving in the Earth
C J Horowitz1, R Widmer-Schnidrig2
1Center for Exploration of Energy and Matter and Department of Physics, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana 47405, USA.
Abstract:
Dark matter could be composed of compact dark objects (CDOs). These objects may interact very weakly with normal matter and could move freely inside the Earth. A CDO moving in the inner core of the Earth will have an orbital period near 55 min and produce a time-dependent signal in a gravimeter. Data from superconducting gravimeters rule out such objects moving inside the Earth unless their mass m_{D} and or orbital radius a are very small so that m_{D}a<1.2×10^{-13}M_{⊕}R_{⊕}. Here, M_{⊕} and R_{⊕} are the mass and radius of the Earth, respectively.
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