Constraining ultralight vector dark matter with the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array second data release

Understand

Composed of ultralight bosons, fuzzy dark matter provides an intriguing solution to challenges that the standard cold dark matter model encounters on sub-galactic scales.

• The ultralight dark matter with mass $m\sim10^{-23} \rm{eV}$ will induce a periodic oscillation in gravitational potentials with a frequency in the nanohertz band, leading to observable effects in the arrival times of radio pulses from pulsars.
• Unlike scalar dark matter, pulsar timing signals induced by the vector dark matter are dependent on the oscillation direction of the vector fields.
• In this work, we search for ultralight vector dark matter in the mass range of $[2\times 10^{-24}, 2\times 10^{-22}]{\rm{eV}}$ through its gravitational effect in the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array (PPTA) second data release.