Optomechanical Sensing for Subatomic and Astroparticle Physics

Session

Quantum Measurement, Gravity & Dark Matter

23 Sept 2026, 10:45

Conveners

Quantum Measurement, Gravity & Dark Matter: Morning

• Wouter Van De Pontseele (Colorado School of Mines)

Quantum Measurement, Gravity & Dark Matter: Afternoon

• Wouter Van De Pontseele (Colorado School of Mines)

Quantum Measurement, Gravity & Dark Matter: Tethered Sensors & Particle Detection

• David Moore (Yale University)

4. Quantum measurements of particles and of waves for probes of gravity: unconditional observation of quantum back-action on gravitational-wave detectors

Vivishek Sudhir (MIT)

23/09/2026, 10:45

Quantum measurement of the motion of particles originated in the study of gravitational-wave detectors. One part of the talk will motivate why and how further acceleration in our ability to measure motion can shed light on the nature of gravity. I will then describe the recent unconditional observation of quantum back-action on gravitational-wave detectors, realizing one of the long-standing...

5. Sensing gravitational waves and dark matter with superfluid helium: tunable acoustic Weber-bar resonators with cavity-electromechanical readout

John Davis (University of Alberta)

23/09/2026, 11:25

Motivated by the seminal experiments of DeLorenzo and Schwab, along with theoretical predictions for coupling of acoustic resonators to dark matter, we have embarked on an effort to build small-scale detectors of gravitational waves and ultra-light dark matter using superfluid helium resonators. The core idea is to build a Weber bar, which resonantly enhances the strain signal from these...

6. Search for scalar ultralight dark matter using cryogenic optical cavities: first demonstration with two cryogenic sapphire Fabry–Pérot cavities

Tejas Deshpande (Northwestern University)

23/09/2026, 13:00

One of the biggest challenges in fundamental physics is understanding the microscopic nature of dark matter. Scalar ultralight dark matter (ULDM) is a well-motivated extension to the standard model (SM) of particle physics, hypothesized to couple to SM parameters like the electron mass and the fine-structure constant, thereby inducing coherent oscillations in the size of macroscopic solids at...

7. Looking for dark photons with two-photon atomic transitions: coherent parahydrogen ensembles and the CATCHY pathfinder

Andrew Buchanan (Queen's University)

23/09/2026, 13:40

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...

8. Heavy Neutrino Experiment Using Levitated Tritiated Nanoparticles

Samuele Sangiorgio (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory)

23/09/2026, 14:00

(15+5)

9. Trapping solid noble gases

Lucas Darroch (Yale)

23/09/2026, 14:20

(15+5)

16. The Invisible Drummer: membrane optomechanical accelerometer search for ultralight dark photon dark matter, and the transition to phase II

Dalziel Wilson (Arizona)

24/09/2026, 15:05

Advances in cooling and probing of solid-state mechanical oscillators using optical cavities have spurred widespread interest in using cavity optomechanical systems as tabletop dark matter detectors [1]. I'll describe a demonstration experiment in which a cryogenically cooled silicon nitride membrane is used to search for coherently oscillating force fields produced by ultralight dark photon...