Microwave seminar | 26 September 2022

The axion is a hypothetical elementary particle that could address two fundamental questions in modern physics: the strong CP problem and the dark matter mystery. The cavity-based haloscope, relying on axion-photon conversion under a magnetic field, has offered the most sensitive approach to detect the axion dark matter signal. However, experimental searches have been limited to relatively low masses, benefiting from large detection volumes and high quality factors for a given experimental setup. We propose a new cavity design that features a periodic arrangement of dielectric material in a conventional conducting cavity. The search frequency is determined by the interspace, being decoupled with the cavity volume and thus this two-dimensional lattice structure is suitable for high mass axion searches. In addition, dielectric properties could substantially improve the cavity quality factor, enhancing experimental performance. An auxetic structure is considered to deploy the array for two-dimensional frequency tuning. We present the characteristics of this haloscope design and demonstrate the feasibility for high-mass axion searches.

Main paper/arXiv, related to the seminar, and other references

arXiv:2205.08885