Description:

Abstract:

Over the last 30 years, dark matter (DM) direct searches have focused on candidates with mass exceeding the proton mass, and  only in recent years  the interest has shifted to light and ultralight DM. In this latter scenario hypothetical DM particles appear as a persistent oscillating field with frequency related to their mass, and coherence determined by particle velocity distribution in the galactic halo. The most sensitive detectors are those that rely on the capability to resonate the DM signal inside high quality factor microwave cavities, but high sensitivity comes at the price of slow searches due to the narrowing of detector band.

In this talk, I will discuss the state of the axion direct detection field, and prospects for applying quantum measurement techniques to improving the search speed. I will then discuss the outlook for the field in the next few years, with the goal to apply single microwave photon counters for microwave cavity readout. This is an exciting challenge that requires the cross fertilisation between particle physics and quantum engineering, and comes with an enormous scientific discovery potential.

Speaker: Caterina Braggio, University of Padova, Italy

Host: Professor Timothy Kovachy