Constraints on fifth forces and ultralight dark matter from OSIRIS-REx target asteroid Bennu

It is important to test the possible existence of fifth forces, as ultralight bosons that would mediate these are predicted to exist in several well-motivated extensions of the Standard Model. Recent work indicated asteroids as promising probes, but applications to real data are lacking so far. Here we use the OSIRIS-REx mission and ground-based tracking data for the asteroid Bennu to derive constraints on fifth forces. Our limits are strongest for mediator masses m ~ (10^-18-10^-17) eV, where we currently achieve the tightest bounds. These can be translated to a wide class of models leading to Yukawa-type fifth forces, and we demonstrate how they apply to U(1) dark photons and baryon-coupled scalars. Our results demonstrate the potential of asteroid tracking in probing well-motivated extensions of the Standard Model and ultralight bosons near the fuzzy dark matter range.

Yu-Dai Tsai, Davide Farnocchia, Marco Micheli, Sunny Vagnozzi, Luca Visinelli