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arXiv:2507.17825 · Physical review. D/Physical review. D.

Ultralight dark matter detection with trapped-ion interferometry

Leonardo Badurina, Diego Blas, John R. Ellis, Sebastian A. R. Ellis

Published Mar 11, 2026• 2 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We explore how recent advances in the manipulation of single-ion wave packets open new avenues for detecting weak magnetic fields sourced by ultralight dark matter. A trapped ion in a “Schrödinger’s cat” state can be prepared with its spin and motional degrees of freedom entangled and be used as a matter-wave interferometer that is sensitive to the Aharonov-Bohm-like phase shift accumulated by the ion over its trajectory. The result of the spin-motion entanglement is a parametrically enhanced sensitivity to weak magnetic fields as compared with an unentangled ion in a trap. Taking into account the relevant boundary conditions, we demonstrate that a single trapped ion can probe unexplored regions of kinetically mixed dark-photon dark matter parameter space in the 10 − 15 eV ≲ m A ′ ≲ 10 − 14 eV mass window. We also show how such a table-top quantum device will also serve as a complementary probe of axionlike particle dark matter in the same mass window.

DOI
10.1103/528c-xs6p

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Quantum phase measurements offer a complementary route to axion searches. We show that axion-photon interactions can imprint both Aharonov-Bohm (AB) and Berry phases in experimentally motivated quantum setups. For a coherently oscillating axion dark matter background, the induced effective current generates a time dependent magnetic flux in an rf-SQUID, leading to a measurable voltage signal through the Josephson phase. For representative benchmarks, this AB phase search reaches the minimum axion-photon coupling gaγγmin∼7.8×10−14 GeV−1g_{aγγ}^{\mathrm{min}}\sim 7.8\times10^{-14}~\mathrm{GeV}^{-1}gaγγmin​∼7.8×10−14 GeV−1 at axion mass ma∼10−10 eVm_a\sim 10^{-10}~\mathrm{eV}ma​∼10−10 eV, with projected sensitivity that can improve on existing limits in that parameter space by roughly one to two orders of magnitude. We also identify a geometric phase observable in a Mach-Zehnder interferometer with an adiabatically rotating magnetic field, providing a proof-of-principle phase-based probe of meV-scale axions even when they do not constitute the dark matter, although sensitivity on the coupling remains weaker than current bounds with conservative tabletop benchmarks. Extending the analysis to a three level photon-axion quasiparticle (AQP)-axion system, with the AQP realized in a topological magnetic insulator, we find a potentially measurable THz Berry phase dominated by the AQP sector, furnishing a nontrivial validation of the formalism in a richer coupled system. These setups establish quantum phase observables as a useful new framework for axion searches, with immediate phenomenological promise in superconducting circuits and longer term potential in quantum enhanced interferometry.