Detecting ultralight bosonic dark matter via absorption in superconductors

Yonit Hochberg*, Tongyan Lin, Kathryn M. Zurek

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

131 Scopus citations

Abstract

Superconducting targets have recently been proposed for the direct detection of dark matter as light as a keV, via elastic scattering off conduction electrons in Cooper pairs. Detecting such light dark matter requires sensitivity to energies as small as the superconducting gap of O(meV). Here we show that these same superconducting devices can detect much lighter DM, of meV to eV mass, via dark matter absorption on a conduction electron, followed by emission of an athermal phonon. We demonstrate the power of this setup for relic kinetically mixed hidden photons, pseudoscalars, and scalars, showing that the reach can exceed current astrophysical and terrestrial constraints with only a moderate exposure.

Original languageEnglish
Article number015019
JournalPhysical Review D
Volume94
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - 18 Jul 2016
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 American Physical Society.

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Detecting ultralight bosonic dark matter via absorption in superconductors'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this