Speaker
Description
Axionlike particles are compelling ultralight dark matter candidates that may couple weakly to photons and induce minute, time varying rotations of the polarization state of light. Cavity enhanced polarimetry offers a promising route to probing such effects by amplifying small polarization changes over many optical round trips. In particular, a Fabry Perot cavity containing two intracavity quarter wave plates can prevent cancellation of the axion induced polarization signal over successive round trips and convert it into an ellipticity signal suitable for heterodyne detection.
This talk will present the development of an experimental prototype designed to investigate this detection principle. The setup is based on a resonant optical cavity, precision polarization optics, and a heterodyne polarimetric readout. I will describe the experimental concept, the role of the intracavity quarter wave plates, and the expected signal generation mechanism. I will also discuss the practical implementation of the apparatus, including cavity characterization, polarization control, optical loss management, and noise characterization.
This work aims to establish a practical foundation for tabletop searches for axionlike dark matter. The prototype will also provide a testbed for understanding the technical noise limits and experimental requirements of future cavity enhanced polarimetric dark matter detectors.
| Primary Abstract Topic | Experiment: Axions and Wave-Like-DM |
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