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arXiv:2511.00145 · Physical review. D/Physical review. D.

Rydberg single photon detection for probing 0.1-10 meV dark matter with BREAD

Abhishek Banerjee, Reza Ebadi, Surjeet Rajendran

Published Aug 7, 2026• 0 citations
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Abstract

We introduce a Rydberg-based single photon detector (SPD) for probing dark matter in the 0.1–10 meV mass range (20 GHz–2 THz). The Rydberg SPD absorbs photons produced and focused by the BREAD dish antenna and trades them for free, detectable electrons. At the lower end of the mass range, photons drive Rydberg-Rydberg transitions, which are read out via state-selective ionization. At higher masses, they directly ionize the Rydberg atoms.

DOI
10.1103/yj2s-v785

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We introduce a Rydberg-based single photon detector (SPD) for probing dark matter in the 0.1–10 meV mass range (20 GHz–2 THz). The Rydberg SPD absorbs photons produced and focused by the BREAD dish antenna and trades them for free, detectable electrons. At the lower end of the mass range, photons drive Rydberg-Rydberg transitions, which are read out via state-selective ionization. At higher masses, they directly ionize the Rydberg atoms.
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Although hidden-photon dark matter with masses above 10−4 eV10^{-4}\,\mathrm{eV}10−4eV is well motivated by inflationary production, it remains largely unexplored by terrestrial experiments. Through kinetic mixing, hidden photons induce a weak oscillating electric field above 10 GHz10\,\mathrm{GHz}10GHz. We propose to amplify this signal using a compact high-frequency distributed cavity and detect it with chip-scale Rydberg-atom superheterodyne spectroscopy. Combining resonant enhancement, large dipole moments of Rydberg atoms, and long-term stable integration, this approach can probe hidden-photon dark matter in the mass range 5×10−5–7×10−4 eV5 \times 10^{-5}\text{--}7\times 10^{-4}\,\mathrm{eV}5×10−5–7×10−4eV with sensitivities 333--444 orders of magnitude beyond existing limits.
A new scheme for detecting wavelike dark matter (DM) using Rydberg atoms is proposed. Recent advances in trapping and manipulating Rydberg atoms make it possible to use Rydberg atoms trapped in optical tweezer arrays for DM detection. We propose to prepare a large ensemble of Rydberg atoms and to observe the excitations between Rydberg states by the DM-induced effective electric field. A scan over DM mass is enabled with the use of the Zeeman and diamagnetic shifts of energy levels under an applied external magnetic field. Taking dark-photon DM as an example, we demonstrate that our proposed experiment can have high enough sensitivity to probe previously unexplored regions of the parameter space of dark-photon coupling strengths and masses.
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We propose a novel dark matter detection method utilizing the excitation of superconducting transmon qubits. Assuming the hidden photon dark matter of a mass of O(10) μeVO(10)\ μ{\rm eV}O(10) μeV, the classical wave-matter oscillation induces an effective ac electric field via the small kinetic mixing with the ordinary photon. This serves as a coherent drive field for a qubit when it is resonant, evolving it from the ground state towards the first-excited state. We evaluate the rate of such evolution and observable excitations in the measurements, as well as the search sensitivity to the hidden photon dark matter. For a selected mass, one can reach ε∼10−12−10−14ε\sim 10^{-12}-10^{-14}ε∼10−12−10−14 (where εεε is the kinetic mixing parameter of the hidden photon) with a single standard transmon qubit. A simple extension to the frequency-tunable SQUID-based transmon enables the mass scan to cover the whole 4−40 μeV4-40\ μ{\rm eV}4−40 μeV (1−101-101−10 GHz) range within a reasonable length of run time. The sensitivity scalability along the number of the qubits also makes it a promising platform in accord to the rapid evolution of the superconducting quantum computer technology.
We present a study of the Rydberg spectrum in 39K^{39}\mathrm{K}39K for nSnSnS and nD3/2n{D}_{3/2}nD3/2​ series connected to 52P1/25{\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}}^{2}{P}_{1/2}52P1/2​ using two-photon spectroscopy based on electromagnetically induced transparency in a heated vapor cell. We observed some 80 transitions from 5P1/25{P}_{1/2}5P1/2​ to Rydberg states with principal quantum numbers $n\ensuremath{\sim}50--90$, and determined their transition frequencies and state energies with sub-GHz precision. Our spectroscopy results lay the groundwork for using Rydberg atoms as sensitive microwave photon detectors in searches for dark matter axions in the $\ensuremath{\sim}40--200 \ensuremath{\mu}\mathrm{eV}$ mass range, which is a prime range for future axion searches suggested by theory studies.