Speaker
Andrew Buchanan
(Queen's University)
Description
Direct detection experiments for particle dark matter have grown to enormous target masses, yet conventional detectors' sensitivity scales only linearly with volume. Quantum-coherent detection schemes offer an alternative: by exploiting collective effects across a macroscopic ensemble, the signal itself can scale quadratically with size. I present the theoretical framework for one such approach, a dark photon search based on collective two-photon transitions in a coherent volume of parahydrogen, and describe CATCHY, its pathfinder experiment at Queen's University. (15+5)