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Milli-eV Axion/Dark Photon Search
Detection of quantum cyclotron transition by Quantum Non-demolition detection of the axial oscillation
Demonstrated and Expected exclusion limit for Dark Photon
In the electron's g-factor measurement, we developed an electron quantum cyclotron system. An electron in a high magnetic field in a Penning trap shows a quantum cyclotron states (so-called Landau levels) with an oscillation frequency ωc = eB/m = 28 GHz ×B(T)=0.12 meV ×B(T). By cooling the trap with a dilution refrigerator, the quantum state decays to the ground state (nc=0) with no blackbody excitation. This has several advantages as a Milli-eV Photon Detector:
The cyclotron transition is an electric dipole transition and is extremely sensitive to electromagnetic fields.
The excitation nc→nc+1 from the blackbody photons is completely suppressed by cooling the trap to below 100 mK, so it is a background-free detector.
The electron’s cyclotron frequency is in the meV range, which is technically challenging for other detectors and has not been explored so far.
The sensitive energy range is easily tunable by changing the magnetic field.
The Penning trap is compatible with external focusing antennas, enhancing the sensitivity by several orders of magnitudes.
Unlike typical superconducting detectors, the electron is compatible with a high magnetic field, which is suitable for the Axion search.
By scaling up the number of trapped electrons, the sensitivity can be linearly increased. Even a trap with 100 electrons will yield a nearly 100 percent single-photon detection efficiency.
Importantly, all the features above are demonstrated as a part of Xing Fan's Ph.D. research.
The project is now in the designing and proposal stage. Successful realization will be the first search of QCD Axion in the meV range. All developments can be done with a dry dil-fridge and a dry-solenoid magnet. Future application includes Light-Shining-through-a-Wall (LSW) experiment at meV range.
contact xing.fan[_at_]northwestern.edu if you are interested!
Supported by
- U.S. National Science Foundation
- U.S. Department of Energy, SQMS
- John Templeton Foundation
- Masason Foundation (公益財団法人 孫正義育英財団)
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