11–13 May 2026
University of Pittsburgh
US/Eastern timezone

The Challenges of Detecting Non-Classical Axions

12 May 2026, 14:45
15m
David Lawrence Hall 121, University of Pittsburgh

David Lawrence Hall 121, University of Pittsburgh

Speaker

Joseph Takach (UC Berkeley)

Description

Despite the possibility of the axion field being in a non-classical state, observing its intrinsically quantum features in a realistic detector is prohibitively difficult. I will discuss the necessary formalism to calculate potentially non-classical statistics of a quantum continuous measurement record, and I will demonstrate the two leading effects that wash out the non-classical statistics: a realistic detector's coarse graining over many axion field modes, and severe suppression of these statistics by increasing powers of the detection efficiency.

Author

Joseph Takach (UC Berkeley)

Presentation materials