New constraints on axion-like dark matter using a Floquet quantum detector.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 35119933.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1126/sciadv.abl8919 and PMC identifier 8816340.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Dark matter is one of the greatest mysteries in physics. It interacts via gravity and composes most of our universe, but its elementary composition is unknown. We search for nongravitational interactions of axion-like dark matter with atomic spins using a precision quantum detector. The detector is composed of spin-polarized xenon gas that can coherently interact with a background dark matter field as it traverses through the galactic dark matter halo. Conducting a 5-month-long search, we report on the first results of the Noble and Alkali Spin Detectors for Ultralight Coherent darK matter (NASDUCK) collaboration. We limit ALP-neutron interactions in the mass range of 4 × 10<sup>-15</sup> to 4 × 10<sup>-12</sup> eV/<i>c</i><sup>2</sup> and improve upon previous terrestrial bounds by up to 1000-fold for masses above 4 × 10<sup>-13</sup> eV/<i>c</i><sup>2</sup>. We also set bounds on pseudoscalar dark matter models with quadratic coupling.