Related papers: Phonon dynamics for light dark matter detection
Phonon reflection and transmission at the interfaces plays a fundamental role in cryogenic particle detectors, in which the optimization of the phonon signal at the sensor (in case of phonon-mediated detectors) or the minimization of the…
We present three Monte Carlo models for the propagation of athermal phonons in the diamond absorber of a composite semiconducting bolometer `Bolo 184'. Previous measurements of the response of this bolometer to impacts by $\alpha$ particles…
Dark matter (DM) is added to the Froggatt-Nielsen (FN) mechanism, and conditions for its successful freezeout identified. Requesting the FN scale $\Lambda_{\text{FN}}$ to be the cutoff of the theory renders freezeout scenarios surprisingly…
We discuss axion dark matter detection via two mechanisms: spontaneous decays and resonant conversion in neutron star magnetospheres. For decays, we show that the brightness temperature signal, rather than flux, is a less ambiguous measure…
We present results on phonon quasidiffusion and Transition Edge Sensor (TES) studies in a large, 3 inch diameter, 1 inch thick [100] high purity germanium crystal, cooled to 50 mK in the vacuum of a dilution refrigerator, and exposed with…
We examine in greater detail the recent proposal of using superconductors for detecting dark matter as light as the warm dark matter limit of O(keV). Detection of such light dark matter is possible if the entire kinetic energy of the dark…
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…
We propose a resonant electromagnetic detector to search for hidden-photon dark matter over an extensive range of masses. Hidden-photon dark matter can be described as a weakly coupled "hidden electric field," oscillating at a frequency…
Liquid xenon and liquid argon detectors are leading the direct dark matter search and are expected to be the candidate technology for the forthcoming generation of ultra-sensitive large-mass detectors. At present, the scintillation light…
Forecasting the signal discrimination power of dark matter (DM) searches is commonly limited to a set of arbitrary benchmark points. We introduce new methods for benchmark-free forecasting that instead allow an exhaustive exploration and…
Inelastic Dark Matter (iDM) is an interesting thermal DM scenario that can pose challenges for conventional detection methods. However, recent studies demonstrated that iDM coupled to a photon by electric or magnetic dipole moments can be…
A simple extension of the Standard Model consists of a scalar field that can potentially constitute the dark matter (DM). Significant attention has been devoted to probing light $\mathcal{O}(\lesssim 10~\rm{eV})$ scalar DM, with a multitude…
We discuss the operation principle of a detector based on superheated droplets of Freon-12 and its feasibility for the search of weakly interacting cold dark matter particles. In particular we are interested in a neutralino search…
We propose a method for detecting single chiral phonons that will enable their use as dark-matter detectors. We suggest metal--organic frameworks (MOFs) as detector materials, as their flexibility yields low-energy chiral phonons with…
Localized excitons play a vital role in the optical response of monolayers of transition metal dichalcogenides and can be exploited as single photon sources for quantum information technology. While the optical properties of such localized…
Phonons play a key role in the physical properties of materials, and have long been a topic of study in physics. While the effects of phonons had historically been considered to be a hindrance, modern research has shown that phonons can be…
Condensed matter materials have shown great potential in searching for light dark matter (DM) via detecting the phonon or magnon signals induced by the scattering of DMs off the materials. In this paper, we study the possibility of…
In this work, we investigate dielectric materials for thermoreflectance-based thermal sensing by extracting key optical parameters using temperature-dependent spectroscopic ellipsometry in the mid-infrared regime. Leveraging optical phonon…
We propose the Optomechanical Dark-matter INstrument (ODIN), based on a new method for the direct detection of low-mass dark matter. We consider dark matter interacting with superfluid helium in an optomechanical cavity. Using an effective…
Freeze-in dark matter (DM) mediated by a light ($\ll$ keV) weakly-coupled dark-photon is an important benchmark for the emerging low-mass direct detection program. Since this is one of the only predictive, detectable freeze-in models, we…