Cosmological observations indicate that dark matter makes up 85% of all matter in the universe yet its microscopic composition remains a mystery. Dark matter could arise from ultralight quantum fields that form macroscopic objects. Here we use the global positioning system as a ~ 50,000 km aperture dark matter detector to search for such objects in the form of domain walls. Global positioning system navigation relies on precision timing signals furnished by atomic clocks. As the Earth moves through the galactic dark matter halo, interactions with domain walls could cause a sequence of atomic clock perturbations that propagate through the satellite constellation at galactic velocities ~ 300 km s−1. Mining 16 years of archival data, we find no evidence for domain walls at our current sensitivity level. This improves the limits on certain quadratic scalar couplings of domain wall dark matter to standard model particles by several orders of magnitude.
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机译：宇宙学观察表明，暗物质占宇宙中所有物质的85％，但其微观组成仍然是个谜。暗物质可能来自形成宏观物体的超轻量子场。在这里，我们使用全球定位系统作为一个约50,000 km孔径的暗物质探测器，以畴壁的形式搜索此类物体。全球定位系统导航依赖于原子钟提供的精确定时信号。当地球穿过银河暗物质光晕时，与畴壁的相互作用可能会导致一系列原子钟微扰，这些银钟微扰以星系速度〜300 km s -1 传播通过卫星星座。挖掘16年的档案数据，在目前的敏感度水平上，我们找不到有关域壁的证据。这将畴壁暗物质与标准模型粒子的某些二次标量耦合的限制提高了几个数量级。
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