Optical Atomic Clock aboard an Earth-orbiting Space Station (OACESS): Enhancing searches for physics beyond the standard model in space

We present a concept for a high-precision optical atomic clock (OAC) operating on an Earth-orbiting space station. This pathfinder science mission will compare the space-based OAC with one or more ultra-stable terrestrial OACs to search for space-time-dependent signatures of dark scalar fields that manifest as anomalies in the relative frequencies of station-based and ground-based clocks. This opens the possibility of probing models of new physics that are inaccessible to purely groundbased OAC experiments where a dark scalar field may potentially be strongly screened near Earth’s surface. This unique enhancement of sensitivity to potential dark matter candidates harnesses the potential of space-based OACs.

我们提出了一种搭载于近地轨道空间站的高精度光原子钟（optical atomic clock, OAC）概念。该先导科学任务将天基光原子钟与一台或多台超稳定地面光原子钟进行比对，以搜寻暗标量场的时空相关特征，这类特征表现为空间站钟与地面钟相对频率的异常。在纯地面光原子钟实验中，暗标量场可能在地球表面附近受到强烈屏蔽，因此本任务为探测这类纯地面实验无法触及的新物理模型提供了可能。本方案借助天基光原子钟的潜力，实现了对潜在暗物质候选体探测灵敏度的独特提升。