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A Time-Varying Fine Structure Constant from Naturally Ultralight Dark Matter

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arxiv 2012.02787 v3 pith:2J3NPNPZ submitted 2020-12-04 hep-ph

A Time-Varying Fine Structure Constant from Naturally Ultralight Dark Matter

classification hep-ph
keywords constantdarkfinematterstructurefieldobservedscalar
verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal T4 reserved
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We present a class of models in which the coupling of the photon to an ultralight scalar field that has a time-dependent vacuum expectation value causes the fine structure constant to oscillate in time. The scalar field is assumed to constitute all or part of the observed dark matter. Its mass is protected against radiative corrections by a discrete $\mathbb{Z}_N$ exchange symmetry that relates the Standard Model to several copies to itself. The abundance of dark matter is set by the misalignment mechanism. We show that the oscillations in the fine structure constant are large enough to be observed in current and near-future experiments.

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Cited by 8 Pith papers

Reviewed papers in the Pith corpus that reference this work. Sorted by Pith novelty score.

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  3. A directional force template for quadratically coupled ultralight dark matter

    hep-ph 2026-06 unverdicted novelty 6.0

    Introduces a directional force template for quadratic ultralight DM couplings, recasts MICROSCOPE constraints, and estimates sensitivity improvement in the anisotropic regime.

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    hep-ph 2025-11 conditional novelty 6.0

    A scalar with hard field-space boundaries — a 'wallion' — is a viable ultralight dark-matter candidate whose exponentially small, radiatively stable mass and saturated relic density at large misalignment also suppress...

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    hep-ph 2026-05 unverdicted novelty 5.0

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  8. Ultralight Dilatonic Dark Matter

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