Conveners
RDC8: Session #1 (Quantum and Superconducting Sensors)
- Rakshya Khatiwada (Fermilab/IIT)
- Aritoki Suzuki (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)
RDC8: Session #2
- Aritoki Suzuki (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)
- Rakshya Khatiwada (Fermilab/IIT)
RDC8: Session #3
- Aritoki Suzuki (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)
- Rakshya Khatiwada (Fermilab/IIT)
RDC8
- Xiran Bai (Yale University)
RDC8: Session #4
- Michaela Guzzetti (University of Washington)
RDC8: Session #5
- James Wetzel (The University of Iowa)
Experiments employing transition-edge sensors (TESs) coupled to crystals for athermal phonon detection are a major part of the worldwide effort to detect dark matter. Such detectors can provide the highest sensitivity to meV to keV-scale signals from a variety of dark matter candidates, including axion-like particles, dark sector dark matter, and WIMPs. We review the current status of the...
SNSPDs are well established as an ultra-fast and highly efficient single photon detector technology. Typical sensor properties, such as small pixel size, low power, and low material thickness, make these sensitive detectors ideal for tracking particle detector applications. Cases where only modest detector areas are needed are prime candidates for this new particle detection technology. One...
The increasing maturity of superconducting qubits over the past few decades has allowed the field of superconducting quantum computing to flourish. In parallel, advances in detector technology which have built on this wave of qubit fabrication expertise have shown that this same technology can be applied to energy sensing at the THz (meV) scale, opening up a new regime of sensing leveraging...
We are currently developing thermal kinetic inductance detectors (TKIDs) for CMB observations and millimeter wave spectroscopy. TKIDs use the temperature dependance of a KID-like high Q resonator as a drop in replacement to TESes, granting bolometric arrays the ease of KID-like readout. We will report on the laboratory performance of an array of antenna coupled KIDs designed for CMB...
Astronomical measurements, particularly using optical interferometers, can be improved -- in some cases greatly so -- through the new application of quantum devices such as quantum memories, single-photon sources, quantum repeaters, quantum teleportation, and more. We will review recent work in this field, a.k.a. "quantum telescopy" and show how quantum-linked optical arrays can directly...
We will discuss the first results from the GigaBREAD experiment. GigaBREAD is a 10.7-12.5 GHz search for dark photons which completed its first round of data taking during the summer of 2023. GigaBREAD is a pilot experiment which is the first to implement the novel BREAD reflector geometry. The BREAD reflector is designed to enhance a dark photon or axion-like particle signal by focusing...
KID-based phonon-mediated (KIPM) detectors have two features that make them attractive for dark matter searches and CEvNS studies: 1) the massive multiplexability of KIDs enables the position resolution necessary for nuclear recoil discrimination; and 2) a variety of amplifier-based and KID-specific improvements chart an attainable path forward to sub-eV energy resolution. We report on the...
Superconducting nanowire single photon detectors (SNSPDs) are the most advanced sensors available for time-resolved single photon counting from the ultraviolet to the infrared. We will discuss recent advances in SNSPD technology, including demonstration of dark count rates below 1e-5 cps, scaling to large-format arrays (up to 400 kpix), single-photon sensitivity at wavelengths as long as 29...
Next generation rare-event searches, for example in looking for "sub-GeV" particle dark matter, require new tools and techniques with much improved sensitivity. In particular, the constrained kinematic space of potential interactions suggests that collective excitations like phonons may be the only signature of very low mass dark matter candidates. One promising technology to study these are...
Several current and next generation cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarimetry experiments employ transition edge sensor (TES) bolometers whose operating temperature is ~100 milli-Kelvin, requiring a critical temperature (Tc) around 170 milli-Kelvin. Aluminum Manganese (AlMn) has been successfully used as the superconducting metal by several groups for CMB experiments. However, achieving a...
A number of applications, including neutrino studies and the search for dark matter, require detectors with lower thresholds and increased sensitivity. Superconducting detectors like Transition Edge Sensors (TES), Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors (MKID), and Josephson Junctions are attractive candidate technologies where the use of low Tc materials could enable them to address theses...
SPT-3G+ is the planned next-generation camera for the South Pole Telescope (SPT). Building on three generations of increasingly sensitive SPT cameras, SPT-3G+ will observe the mm/sub-mm sky at 220, 285, and 345 GHz, beyond the peak of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) blackbody spectrum. Consisting of 34,000 monochroic microwave kinetic inductance detectors (MKIDs) across seven wafers,...
Harnessing sub-eV energy excitations from light dark matter interaction with a target material is one of the challenges in exploring promising novel materials for dark matter searches. In polar materials like sapphire, dark matter interaction can excite sub-eV optical phonon modes. Furthermore, the anisotropy of sapphire crystal could provide a signature of daily modulation of the dark matter...
An optical quantum sensor (OQS) based on lasers and alkali-metal atoms is currently the most sensitive ambient-temperature magnetometer. Because of high sensitivity and operation in a broad frequency range, the OQS can be used in axion dark matter search with an inductor-capacitor (LC) circuit at kHz and MHz frequencies. In this talk, we will present our recent activities on OQS-based axion...
Developments over the last decade have pushed the search for particle dark matter (DM) to new frontiers, including the keV-scale lower mass limit for thermally-produced DM. Galactic DM at this mass is kinematically matched with the energy needed to break a Cooper pair in common superconductors (~meV). Quantum sensors such as superconducting qubits are sensitive to these broken Cooper pairs,...
Long-baseline atom interferometry presents an exciting opportunity for DOE to develop a new program of research in quantum atomic sensors for ultralight dark matter and mid-band gravitational waves. The development and science exploitation of long-baseline atomic experiments promises an ambitious long-term research program at the intersection of the energy, cosmic, and quantum information...
The BREAD(Broadband Reflector Experiment for Axion Detection) experiment searches for axions and wave-like dark matter using a novel dish resonator which allows to utilize state-of-the-art high-field solenoidal magnets. The axion target mass extends from ~𝜇eV to eV, this large mass range makes it difficult to scale traditional resonator setups to the required volume. However, metallic surfaces...
The Axion Dark Matter eXperiment (ADMX) is one of the world’s leading direct detection experiments searching for an elusive dark matter particle candidate known as the axion. The axion’s origin lies in the realm of particle physics, initially coming into existence as a solution to the strong CP problem. Since its inception however, physicists have been interested in it not only for its ability...
Optomechanical strain sensing provides attractive opportunities for novel particle detection schemes, as well as studying stress-induced (i.e. non-radiogenic) phonon bursts, which have been demonstrated to limit the coherence times of superconducting qubits and are a suspected culprit in the low energy excesses observed by many dark matter direct detection experiments. We are investigating SiN...
The HAYSTAC Collaboration is actively searching for axion cold dark matter using a resonant microwave cavity and quantum squeezed state receiver. With axion mass and coupling strength unknown, a crucial metric is the scanning rate across their parameter space. Recent advancements in squeezed state receivers have doubled the scanning rate. This talk will discuss HAYSTAC's current...
Parametric amplifiers continue to be vital components in solid state quantum readout at cryogenic temperatures. Various flavors of parametric amplifiers are carving their place in a number of different readout architectures. Josephson junction (JJ) based amplifiers are the natural progression when these readout architectures are at deep cryogenic temperatures. Josephson traveling wave...
QCDs, which are based on a charge qubit design, are the most sensitive far-infrared detectors in 1.5 THz regime. Apart from their current application in space telescopes for infrared spectroscopy, they have single-photon sensitivity that can be utilized to look for ultralight Dark Matter at the meV scale. This talk will give an overview of our work to characterize a QCD detector using a weak...
