Binary Pulsars as Resonant Detectors of Light Dark Matter

D. LÓPEZ NACIR

Basel

Encuentro; Swiss Cosmology Days 2017,; 2017

University of Geneva and ETH Zurich

Dark matter (DM) candidates with very light masses may be described as a classical scalar field performing coherent oscillations with frequencies proportional to their mass. The presence of the DM field can lead to observable effects on the dynamics of ordinary matter, either because the DM stress tensor modifies the spacetime metric, or if the DM is directly coupled to the Standard Model. In this talk I will summarise recent work where we use the exquisite precision of the orbital parameters of binary pulsars to constrain the effects.