Speaker
Description
The axion is one of the most compelling dark matter candidates, simultaneously resolving the strong CP problem and accounting for the observed dark matter abundance. Detecting it requires extraordinary sensitivity, as the expected signals are buried far below thermal noise. Haloscopes — instruments exploiting axion-photon conversion in a strong magnetic field — have entered a rapidly evolving phase, with a growing diversity of experimental approaches targeting different regions of axion mass parameter space.
In this talk I give an overview of the main haloscope concepts and their associated resonator designs, discussing the key challenges of achieving high sensitivity while maintaining broad tunability. I then turn to the readout chain, where quantum sensing is emerging as a transformative tool. Beyond the standard quantum limit set by linear amplifiers, photon-counting and other quantum-enhanced detection strategies promise dramatic improvements in search speed and sensitivity. I discuss the prospects and challenges of these new approaches and their implications for the broader axion dark matter search programme.