MIT researchers and European collaborators have developed a method to detect dark matter imprints in gravitational wave signals. By running numerical simulations of black hole binary mergers in dark matter environments versus vacuum, they built a predictive waveform model and applied it to publicly available LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA data from the first three observing runs. Of 28 analyzed signals, 27 matched vacuum predictions, but one — GW190728 — showed a statistical preference for a dark matter environment. The team stresses this is not a confirmed detection, but the method provides a new screening tool for future gravitational wave data as detectors continue collecting observations.
10 Impressions