TY - JOUR
T1 - Search for dark photons using a multilayer dielectric haloscope equipped with a single-photon avalanche diode
AU - Manenti, Laura
AU - Mishra, Umang
AU - Bruno, Gianmarco
AU - Roberts, Henry
AU - Oikonomou, Panos
AU - Pasricha, Renu
AU - Sarnoff, Isaac
AU - Weston, James
AU - Arneodo, Francesco
AU - Di Giovanni, Adriano
AU - Millar, Alexander John
AU - Mora, Knut Dundas
N1 - Funding Information:
Indispensable in triggering our interest for the detection of dark photons using dielectric haloscopes was the initial contact with Dr. Ken Van Tilburg. Fundamental to the development of the detector were Dr. Masha Baryakhtar, Dr. Junwu Huang, and Dr. Robert Lasenby, whose paper “Axion and hidden photon dark matter detection with multilayer optical haloscopes” has been very helpful in the first stage of this work. We are grateful to Dr. Alessia Allevi and Dr. Maria Bondani for the fruitful conversation about single-photon detection sensors back in November 2018. We thank Jean-Matthieu Bromont, sales engineer at Hi-Tech Detection Systems partner of Excelitas Technologies, who was always available for support and advice throughout the project. We sincerely thank Jens Krause and Philippe Brard from Excelitas Technologies for their guidance and suggestions. For the stack manufacturing, we thank Dr. Andrea Scaccabarozzi and Dr. Claudio Somaschini at PoliFab. For the statistical analysis, we express our gratitude to Dr. Giacomo Vianello, who, before leaving academia for a successful career in data science, passed on his knowledge on the significance of an excess in counting experiments. We thank Jinumon Govindan, our workshop technician at NYUAD, who skillfully built the mechanical parts needed for the experiment. This work was supported by the NYUAD Research Enhancement Fund. A. M. is supported by the European Research Council under Grant No. 742104 and by the Swedish Research Council (VR) under Dnr No. 2019-02337 “Detecting Axion Dark Matter in the Sky and in the Lab (AxionDM).” K. D. M. is supported by the National Science Foundation under Award No. 1719286. Last but not least, this work was made possible thanks to the heterogeneous expertise of its authors and their willingness to share their knowledge. As is often the case, effective collaboration and teamwork are the cornerstones of scientific achievement.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 authors. Published by the American Physical Society.
PY - 2022/3/1
Y1 - 2022/3/1
N2 - We report the results of the search for dark photons with mass around 1.5 eV/c2 using a multilayer dielectric haloscope equipped with an affordable and commercially available photosensor. The multilayer stack, which enables the conversion of dark photons (DP) to Standard Model photons, is made of 23 bilayers of alternating SiO2 and Si3N4 thin films with linearly increasing thicknesses through the stack (a configuration known as a "chirped stack"). The thicknesses have been chosen according to an optimization algorithm in order to maximize the DP-photon conversion in the energy region where the photosensor sensitivity peaks. This prototype experiment, dubbed "MuDHI"(Multilayer Dielectric Haloscope Investigation) by the authors of this paper, has been designed, developed, and run at the Astroparticle Laboratory of New York University Abu Dhabi, which marks the first time a dark matter experiment has been operated in the Middle East. No significant signal excess is observed, and the method of maximum log likelihood is used to set exclusion limits at 90% confidence level on the kinetic mixing coupling constant between dark photons and ordinary photons.
AB - We report the results of the search for dark photons with mass around 1.5 eV/c2 using a multilayer dielectric haloscope equipped with an affordable and commercially available photosensor. The multilayer stack, which enables the conversion of dark photons (DP) to Standard Model photons, is made of 23 bilayers of alternating SiO2 and Si3N4 thin films with linearly increasing thicknesses through the stack (a configuration known as a "chirped stack"). The thicknesses have been chosen according to an optimization algorithm in order to maximize the DP-photon conversion in the energy region where the photosensor sensitivity peaks. This prototype experiment, dubbed "MuDHI"(Multilayer Dielectric Haloscope Investigation) by the authors of this paper, has been designed, developed, and run at the Astroparticle Laboratory of New York University Abu Dhabi, which marks the first time a dark matter experiment has been operated in the Middle East. No significant signal excess is observed, and the method of maximum log likelihood is used to set exclusion limits at 90% confidence level on the kinetic mixing coupling constant between dark photons and ordinary photons.
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U2 - 10.1103/PhysRevD.105.052010
DO - 10.1103/PhysRevD.105.052010
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85128596529
SN - 2470-0010
VL - 105
JO - Physical Review D
JF - Physical Review D
IS - 5
M1 - 052010
ER -