Directional Searching for Light Dark Matter with Quantum Sensors

Area of Science:

• Particle Physics
• Quantum Sensing
• Cosmology

Background:

• Dark matter (DM) detection is a key indicator of new physics.
• Wavelike DM is typically detected using quantum sensors like qubits or cavities.
• Sensor phase information is usually discarded, but phase differences can reveal DM wind properties.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose a novel measurement protocol for extracting DM wind velocity and direction.
• To utilize quantum states for enhanced information extraction from quantum sensors.
• To demonstrate the superiority of the proposed quantum method over classical approaches.

Main Methods:

• Developing a measurement protocol using quantum states to analyze sensor phase differences.
• Applying the protocol to quantum sensors (e.g., qubits, cavities) used in DM detection.
• Comparing the quantum protocol's performance against classical methods based on DM signal correlations.

Main Results:

• The proposed protocol successfully extracts DM wind velocity and direction information from sensor phase differences.
• The method is versatile, applicable to various DM detectors with quantum data acquisition.
• The quantum protocol enhances DM detection sensitivity and outperforms classical correlation methods.

Conclusions:

• A new quantum measurement protocol offers a powerful tool for probing dark matter properties.
• This method unlocks previously discarded phase information in quantum sensors for DM detection.
• The technique provides a significant advancement in dark matter detection sensitivity and directional information.