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Recent advances in quantum sensors, including atomic clocks, enable searches for a broad range of dark matter candidates. The question of the dark matter distribution in the Solar system critically affects the reach of dark matter direct detection experiments. Partly motivated by the NASA Deep Space Atomic Clock (DSAC), we show that space quantum sensors present new opportunities for ultralight dark matter searches, especially for dark matter states bound to the Sun. We show that space quantum sensors can probe unexplored parameter space of ultralight dark matter, covering theoretical relaxion targets motivated by naturalness and Higgs mixing. If an atomic clock were able to make measurements on the interior of the solar system, it could probe this highly sensitive region directly and set very strong constraints on the existence of such a bound-state halo in our solar system. We present sensitivity projections for space-based probes of ultralight dark matter which couples to electron, photon, and gluon fields, based on current and future atomic, molecular, and nuclear clocks.
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Novel Quantum Sensors for Light Dark Matter and Neutrino Detection
The fields of light dark matter and neutrino physics offer compelling signals at recoil energies of eV to even meV, well below the [Formula: see text] keV thresholds of many techniques currently employed in these fields. Sensing of such small energies can benefit from the emergence of so-called quantum sensors, which employ fundamentally quantum mechanical phenomena to transduce energy depositions into electrical signals. This review focuses on quantum sensors under development that will enhance and extend the search for “particle-like” interactions of dark matter or enable new measurements of neutrino properties in the coming years.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2111324
- PAR ID:
- 10438369
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Annual Review of Nuclear and Particle Science
- Volume:
- 72
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 0163-8998
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 419 to 446
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-nucl-102020-112133
