Speaker
Description
AICE: A long-baseline atom interferometry facility at CERN
The Atom Interferometer CERN Experiment (AICE) is a proposed long-baseline quantum sensing facility to be installed in the PX46 support shaft at CERN’s LHC Point 4. The project builds on a growing international programme of national pathfinder experiments in atom interferometry, including AION in the UK, MAGIS-100 in the US, VLBAI in Hannover, MIGA in France, ZAIGA in China, and related efforts worldwide. These activities are being brought together within the emerging TVLBAI collaboration, which provides the framework for developing long-baseline interferometers and their future network.
AICE is conceived as a staged and upgradeable facility rather than a single fixed experiment. Its primary scientific objective is the search for ultralight dark matter using precision measurements of atomic transition frequencies, targeting regions of parameter space that are complementary to existing approaches. In addition, AICE will explore the mid-frequency gravitational-wave band (∼0.01–10 Hz). At the 100 m scale, this programme is exploratory, aiming to characterise the noise environment in this frequency range and to validate techniques required for future, longer-baseline detectors.
Detailed feasibility and implementation studies have identified the PX46 shaft as a uniquely suitable site, with the required infrastructure upgrades compatible with LHC operation. Following the submission of a Letter of Intent, the project is now progressing towards the preparation of a Technical Proposal for review by CERN.
In this contribution, we will present the physics motivation, experimental concept, and site integration of AICE, and discuss its role within the broader international effort on long-baseline atom interferometry. We will also outline the longer-term perspective towards a global network of detectors and the path towards kilometre-scale instruments.
| Parallel session | New Physics Searches: Dark Matter and High-Frequency Gravitational Waves |
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