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  • Open Access

Constraint on ultralight Nelson-Barr dark matter from time-dependent nuclear decay

Chang-Jie Dai* and Tong Li†

  • *Contact author: daichangjie@mail.nankai.edu.cn
  • †Contact author: litong@nankai.edu.cn
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Phys. Rev. D 112, 055001 – Published 5 September, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/df9w-zq34

Abstract

Many experiments have notably reported anomalies in radioactive decay rates with periodic variations and challenged the traditional belief of time-independent decays. This periodicity could potentially be explained by the presence of a periodic dark matter (DM) candidate. In this work, we investigate the impact of time-dependent nuclear decay rates on the ultralight scalar DM in the Nelson-Barr solution to the strong CP problem. The light scalar DM field in this framework induces periodic modulations of both Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix elements and quark mass parameters. These modulations generate corresponding periodic perturbations in the neutron-proton mass difference and nuclear binding energies. Consequently, nuclear decay rates receive oscillating residuals. By analyzing the tritium decay rate, we derive new exclusion bounds on the Nelson-Barr DM parameters.

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Phys. Rev. D 112, 055001– Published 5 September, 2025
  • Received 6 July 2025
  • Accepted 18 August 2025
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