AEDGE: Atomic Experiment for Dark Matter and Gravity Exploration in Space

Yousef Abou El-Neaj , Cristiano Alpigiani , Sana Amairi-Pyka , Henrique Araújo , Antun Balaž , Angelo Bassi , Lars Bathe-Peters , Baptiste Battelier (1) , Aleksandar Belić , Elliot Bentine , José Bernabeu , Andrea Bertoldi (1) , Robert Bingham , Diego Blas , Vasiliki Bolpasi , Kai Bongs , Sougato Bose , Philippe Bouyer (1) , Themis Bowcock , William Bowden , Clare Burrage , Xavier Calmet , Benjamin Canuel (1) , Laurentiu-Ioan Caramete , Andrew Carroll , Giancarlo Cella , Vassilis Charmandaris , Swapan Chattopadhyay , Xuzong Chen , Maria Luisa Chiofalo , Jonathon Coleman , Joseph Cotter , Yanou Cui , Andrei Derevianko , Albert de Roeck , Goran Djordjevic , Peter Dornan , Michael Doser , Ioannis Drougkakis , Jacob Dunningham , Ioana Dutan , Sajan Easo , Gedminas Elertas , John Ellis , Mai El Sawy , Farida Fassi , Daniel Felea , Chen-Hao Feng (1) , Robert Flack , Chris Foot , Ivette Fuentes , Naceur Gaaloul , Alexandre Gauguet (2) , Remi Geiger (3) , Valerie Gibson , Gian Giudice , Jon Goldwin , Oleg Grachov , Peter W. Graham , Dario Grasso , Maurits van Der Grinten , Mustafa Gündogan , Martin G. Haehnelt , Tiffany Harte , Aurelien Hees (3) , Richard Hobson , Bodil Holst , Jason Hogan , Mark Kasevich , Bradley J. Kavanagh , Wolf von Klitzing , Tim Kovachy , Benjamin Krikler , Markus Krutzik , Marek Lewicki , Yu-Hung Lien , Miaoyuan Liu , Giuseppe Gaetano Luciano , Alain Magnon , Mohammed Mahmoud , Sarah Malik , Christopher Mccabe , Jeremiah Mitchell , Julia Pahl , Debapriya Pal , Saurabh Pandey , Dimitris Papazoglou , Mauro Paternostro , Bjoern Penning , Achim Peters , Marco Prevedelli , Vishnupriya Puthiya-Veettil , John Quenby , Ernst Rasel , Sean Ravenhall , Haifa Rejeb Sfar , Jack Ringwood , Albert Roura , Dylan Sabulsky (1) , Muhammed Sameed , Ben Sauer , Stefan Alaric Schäffer , Stephan Schiller , Vladimir Schkolnik , Dennis Schlippert , Christian Schubert , Armin Shayeghi , Ian Shipsey , Carla Signorini , Marcelle Soares-Santos , Fiodor Sorrentino , Yajpal Singh , Timothy Sumner , Konstantinos Tassis , Silvia Tentindo , Guglielmo Maria Tino , Jonathan N. Tinsley , James Unwin , Tristan Valenzuela , Georgios Vasilakis , Ville Vaskonen , Christian Vogt , Alex Webber-Date , Andŕ E} Wenzlawski , Patrick Windpassinger , Marian Woltmann , Michael Holynski , Efe Yazgan , Ming-Sheng Zhan , Xinhao Zou (1) , Jure Zupan

1 LP2N - Laboratoire Photonique, Numérique et Nanosciences
2 LCAR - Laboratoire Collisions Agrégats Réactivité
3 SYRTE - Systèmes de Référence Temps Espace

We propose in this White Paper a concept for a space experiment using cold atoms to search for ultra-light dark matter, and to detect gravitational waves in the frequency range between the most sensitive ranges of LISA and the terrestrial LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA/INDIGO experiments. This interdisciplinary experiment, called Atomic Experiment for Dark Matter and Gravity Exploration (AEDGE), will also complement other planned searches for dark matter, and exploit synergies with other gravitational wave detectors. We give examples of the extended range of sensitivity to ultra-light dark matter offered by AEDGE, and how its gravitational-wave measurements could explore the assembly of super-massive black holes, first-order phase transitions in the early universe and cosmic strings. AEDGE will be based upon technologies now being developed for terrestrial experiments using cold atoms, and will benefit from the space experience obtained with, e.g., LISA and cold atom experiments in microgravity. This paper is based on a submission (v1) in response to the Call for White Papers for the Voyage 2050 long-term plan in the ESA Science Programme. ESA limited the number of White Paper authors to 30. However, in this version (v2) we have welcomed as supporting authors participants in the Workshop on Atomic Experiments for Dark Matter and Gravity Exploration held at CERN: ({\tt https://indico.cern.ch/event/830432/}), as well as other interested scientists, and have incorporated additional material.

Mots clés: dark matter; atom; gravitational radiation; LISA; gravitational radiation detector; critical phenomena; cosmic string; detector: sensitivity; black hole; CERN Lab; VIRGO; KAGRA; LIGO

Domaines: Relativité Générale et Cosmologie Quantique [gr-qc]; Instrumentations et Détecteurs [physics.ins-det]; Physique des Hautes Energies - Expérience [hep-ex]; Physique des Hautes Energies - Phénoménologie [hep-ph]; Physique Générale [physics.gen-ph]

Yousef Abou El-Neaj, Cristiano Alpigiani, Sana Amairi-Pyka, Henrique Araújo, Antun Balaž, et al.. AEDGE: Atomic Experiment for Dark Matter and Gravity Exploration in Space. EPJ Quant.Technol., 2020, 7, pp.6. ⟨10.1140/epjqt/s40507-020-0080-0⟩. ⟨hal-02290748⟩