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

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 Nelson-Barr solution to the strong CP problem. The light scalar DM field in this framework induces periodic modulations of both CKM 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.