Ultralight dark matter detection with levitated ferromagnets
Levitated ferromagnets act as ultraprecise magnetometers, which can exhibit high quality factors due to their excellent isolation from the environment. These instruments can be utilized in searches for ultralight dark matter candidates, such as axionlike dark matter or dark-photon dark matter. In addition to being sensitive to an axion-photon coupling or kinetic mixing, which produce physical magnetic fields, ferromagnets are also sensitive to the effective magnetic field (or “axion wind”) produced by an axion-electron coupling. While the dynamics of a levitated ferromagnet in response to a dc magnetic field have been well studied, all of these couplings would produce ac fields. In this work, we study the response of a ferromagnet to an applied ac magnetic field and use these results to project their sensitivity to axion and dark-photon dark matter. We pay special attention to the direction of motion induced by an applied ac field, in particular, whether it precesses around the applied field (similar to an electron spin) or librates in the plane of the field (similar to a compass needle). We show that existing levitated ferromagnet setups can already have comparable sensitivity to an axion-electron coupling as comagnetometer or torsion balance experiments. In addition, future setups can become sensitive probes of axion-electron coupling, dark-photon kinetic mixing, and axion-photon coupling, for ultralight dark matter masses <a:math xmlns:a="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><a:mrow><a:msub><a:mrow><a:mi>m</a:mi></a:mrow><a:mrow><a:mi>DM</a:mi></a:mrow></a:msub><a:mo>≲</a:mo><a:mi>feV</a:mi></a:mrow></a:math>. Published by the American Physical Society 2024
Authors
- Andrea Vinante (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9385-2127)
- Tao Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9264-3510)
- Dmitry Budker (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7356-4814)
- Chris Timberlake (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2446-8313)
- Hendrik Ulbricht (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0356-0065)
- Derek F. Jackson Kimball (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2479-6034)
- Saarik Kalia (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7362-6501)
- Alexander O. Sushkov (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8895-6338)
- Wei Ji (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3810-4828)
- Zhen Liu
Institutions
- Boston University (US)
- Agency for Science, Technology and Research (SG)
- California State University System (US)
- Johns Hopkins University (US)
- University of Applied Sciences Mainz (DE)
- GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research (DE)
- California State University, East Bay (US)
- Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (DE)
- Fondazione Bruno Kessler (IT)
- University of Minnesota System (US)
- Helmholtz Institute Mainz (DE)
- Istituto di Fotonica e Nanotecnologie (IT)
- A*STAR Graduate Academy (SG)
- University of Southampton (GB)
- Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies
- University of California, Berkeley (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Physical review. D/Physical review. D.
- Published
- 2024-12-19
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevd.110.115029
- Citations
- 12
- Primary Topic
- Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 7.92
Funders
- National Science Foundation
- U.S. Department of Energy
- Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
- Simons Foundation
- Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
- University of Minnesota
- UK Research and Innovation
- Leverhulme Trust
- European Commission
- Agency for Science, Technology and Research
- National Research Foundation Singapore
- QuantERA
- Ministero dell'Università e della Ricerca
- Office of Science
- Horizon 2020 Framework Programme
- HORIZON EUROPE Framework Programme
- Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council