Prospects for gravitational wave and ultralight dark matter detection with binary resonances beyond the secular approximation
Phys. Rev. D 114, 044068 – Published 24 August, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/g2d9-b4s9
Abstract
Precision observations of orbital systems have recently emerged as a promising new means of detecting gravitational waves and ultralight dark matter, offering sensitivity in new regimes with significant discovery potential. Such searches rely critically on precise modeling of the dynamical effects of these signals on the observed system, however, previous analyses have mainly only relied on the secularly averaged part of the response. We introduce here a fundamentally different approach that allows for a fully time-resolved description of the effects of oscillatory metric perturbations on orbital dynamics. We find that gravitational waves and ultralight dark matter can induce large oscillations in the orbital parameters of realistic binaries, enhancing the sensitivity to such signals by orders of magnitude compared to previous estimates.
