Study sets new constraints on dark photons using a new dielectric optical haloscope

Ingrid Fadelli is a writer for the website Phys.org.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Perimeter Institute recently set new constraints on dark photons, which are hypothetical particles. Their findings, presented in a paper published in Physical Review Letters, were achieved using a new single photon detector they developed.

One of the researchers who carried out the study said there was a close collaboration between NIST and MIT. We work together to advance the technology and applications for ultra sensitive devices.

Over the past few years, Chiles and his colleagues have been looking at potential applications that would benefit from the SNSPD detectors they have been working on, which have virtually no background noise among other advantages. They were introduced to a group of physicists.

The team of theorists had an interesting idea for a dark matter detector that could operate in a different domain than the ones currently used. An optical detector that could perform better than the ones on the market today is what this detector needs.

The MIT and NIST groups were able to build the detector and test it out. We decided to call our project LAMPOST (light A' Multilayer Periodic Optical SNSPD target). We wanted to get the first experimental proof-of-concept for this idea and prove that it could be used to find dark matter with better sensitivity than the already established bounds.

The structure used for the optical detector is known as a dielectric stack. The structure can convert a dark photon into a light photon in the same wavelength.

The incoming signals were registered over a period of time.

The researchers estimated the dark count rate to be a factor in setting a limit on the dark mattercoupling. Their noise value is the lowest in the literature.

We were able to find a type of dark matter that was twice as sensitive as anything else we searched for. This is still a small step out of a huge range of possibilities for dark matter. For our first run to exceed existing bounds is an important first step.

The team of researchers gathered valuable insight that could inform future searches and also encourage the use of SNSPDs. Chiles and his colleagues learned more about their detector's capabilities after setting new constraints.

They discovered that the noise in their detector was very low. The team only observed 5 false events for one of their single photon detectors, suggesting that their technology is highly sensitive to weak signals.

It's exciting to think what other rare- event physics experiments this technology could be applied to. The experiment will be scaled up from here. The first run was a proof of concept, but the next run will be sensitive enough to cover a large space for dark matter, which will include both axions and dark photons.

More information: Jeff Chiles et al, New Constraints on Dark Photon Dark Matter with Superconducting Nanowire Detectors in an Optical Haloscope, Physical Review Letters (2022). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.128.231802 Journal information: Physical Review Letters

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