Ultralight scalar dark matter versus non-adiabatic perfect fluid dark matter in pulsar timing

Recent evidence of direct detection of stochastic gravitational waves reported by pulsar timing array collaborations might open a new window for studying cosmology and astrophysical phenomena. In addition to signals from gravitational waves, there is motivation to explore residual signals from oscillating dark matter, which might partially comprise the galactic halo. We investigate fluctuations in pulsar timing originating from the coherent oscillation of scalar dark matter up to the subleading order of O(k/m), as well as from acoustic oscillations of non-adiabatic perfect fluid dark matter. Both types of dark matter can generate oscillating Newtonian potential perturbations and curvature perturbations, thereby affecting pulsar timing. Our results show distinctive signatures in pulsar timing residuals and angular correlations for these dark matters. Specifically, pulsar timing residuals from non-adiabatic perfect fluid dark matter exhibit different directional dependence and are shown to be more sensitive to the distance to a pulsar. We also study the angular correlation patterns from these dark matters in the NANOGrav 15-year data set. The best fit might suggest that the composition of non-adiabatic perfect fluid dark matter in our galaxy is much greater than that of ultralight scalar dark matter.