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Department of Physics & Astronomy

[Moohyun Ahn, Prof. Byeongsu Yang and Prof. Jonghee Yoo] Searching for Invisible Axion Dark Matter with an 18 T Magnet Haloscope

December 5, 2022l Hit 70

The axion has been postulated to solve the strong-CP problem in quantum chromodynamics, and it is a strong candidate for dark matter. Axion can couple to magnetic fields and convert to electromagnetic waves.  Using this property, one can probe the dark matter axions. Our research team built a dark matter axion detector with an 18T high-temperature superconducting solenoid magnet which maximizes the axion-to-photon conversion probability. A quantum amplifier (Josephson Parametric Converter) minimizes the noise rate to near the quantum limit. This new axion search detector achieved ultimate sensitivity, which can probe KSVZ axion model range; the model was proposed by Prof. JihnE Kim in 1979. The new results show the world's best sensitivity at ~20ueV of high mass axion model region.

PRL 128, 241805 (2022) https://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.128.241805

PRD 106 092007 (2022) https://journals.aps.org/prd/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevD.106.092007