Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

arXiv:2606.25129

Halo-Independent Quantum Sensor Probes of Low-Velocity Dark Matter

Muping Chen, Graciela B. Gelmini, Volodymyr Takhistov, Koichiro Yasuda

hep-phastro-ph.COhep-exquant-phSubmitted Jun 23, 2026• Announced Jun 25, 2026
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We present a halo-independent framework for sub-GeV dark matter (DM) direct detection using quantum sensors with sub-eV energy thresholds. Such detectors enable access to low DM velocities and may be sensitive to departures from the Standard Halo Model that are challenging to probe with conventional direct DM detection experiments. The method expresses the DM scattering event rate in terms of a detector and particle model-dependent response function, and a universal halo function common to all experiments to be determined from data. This allows the local DM velocity distribution to be constrained. As representative implementations, we consider TES (Al) and MKID (TiN)-like sensors and show that their differing material responses probe complementary regimes of the DM velocity distribution. Applying the framework to mock data derived from several benchmark local halo models, we demonstrate how the assumed halo function could be reconstructed. This framework demonstrates the potential of quantum sensors as a new avenue for mapping the local DM velocity distribution.

Comments
19 pages, 24 figures

Related papers

Directional Searching for Light Dark Matter with Quantum Sensors

Hajime Fukuda, Yuichiro Matsuzaki, Thanaporn Sichanugrist

The presence of dark matter (DM) stands as one of the most compelling indications of new physics in particle physics. Typically, the detection of wavelike DM involves quantum sensors, such as qubits or cavities. The phase of the sensors is usually discarded as the value of the phase itself is not physically meaningful. However, the difference of the phase between the sensors contains the information of the velocity and direction of the DM wind. We propose a measurement protocol to extract this information from the sensors using quantum states. Our method does not require specific experimental setups and can be applied to any type of DM detector as long as the data from the detectors can be taken quantum mechanically. We also show that our method does not spoil the sensitivity of the DM detectors and is superior to the classical method based on the correlations of the DM signals between the detectors.

arXiv:2506.19614•Physical Review Letters•Oct 21, 2025•3 citations

Quantum-enhanced interferometry for dark matter searches

J. Heinze, Artemiy V. Dmitriev, Alex Gill +3 more

We present the design and status of a detector to search for axions and axion-like particles in the galactic halo using quantum-enhanced interferometry. The operating principle is related to previously reported ideas, but aims for axions in the mass range from 10−16 eV up to 10−8 eV. We also show how to apply squeezed states of light to enhance the sensitivity similar to the gravitational-wave detectors. This experiment has the potential to be further scaled up to a multi-kilometre long detector and to then set constraints of the axion-photon coupling coefficient of ∼ 10−18 GeV−1 for axion masses of 10−16 eV, or detect a signal.

Quantum Technology: Driving Commercialisation of an Enabling Science•Jan 11, 2023•0 citations

Direct detection of classically undetectable dark matter through quantum decoherence

C. Jess Riedel

Although various pieces of indirect evidence about the nature of dark matter have been collected, its direct detection has eluded experimental searches despite extensive effort. If the mass of dark matter is below 1 MeV, it is essentially imperceptible to conventional detection methods because negligible energy is transferred to nuclei during collisions. Here I propose directly detecting dark matter through the quantum decoherence it causes rather than its classical effects, such as recoil or ionization. I show that quantum spatial superpositions are sensitive to low-mass dark matter that is inaccessible to classical techniques. This provides new independent motivation for matter interferometry with large masses, especially on spaceborne platforms. The apparent dark matter wind we experience as the Sun travels through the Milky Way ensures interferometers and related devices are directional detectors, and so are able to provide unmistakable evidence that decoherence has Galactic origins.

arXiv:1212.3061•Physical review. D. Particles, fields, gravitation, and cosmology/Physical review. D. Particles and fields•Dec 5, 2013•67 citations

Searching for Dark Matter with a Superconducting Qubit

Akash V. Dixit, Srivatsan Chakram, Kevin T. He +4 more

Detection mechanisms for low mass bosonic dark matter candidates, such as the axion or hidden photon, leverage potential interactions with electromagnetic fields, whereby the dark matter (of unknown mass) on rare occasion converts into a single photon. Current dark matter searches operating at microwave frequencies use a resonant cavity to coherently accumulate the field sourced by the dark matter and a near standard quantum limited (SQL) linear amplifier to read out the cavity signal. To further increase sensitivity to the dark matter signal, sub-SQL detection techniques are required. Here we report the development of a novel microwave photon counting technique and a new exclusion limit on hidden photon dark matter. We operate a superconducting qubit to make repeated quantum nondemolition measurements of cavity photons and apply a hidden Markov model analysis to reduce the noise to 15.7 dB below the quantum limit, with overall detector performance limited by a residual background of real photons. With the present device, we perform a hidden photon search and constrain the kinetic mixing angle to ε≤1.68×10^{-15} in a band around 6.011 GHz (24.86 μeV) with an integration time of 8.33 s. This demonstrated noise reduction technique enables future dark matter searches to be sped up by a factor of 1,300. By coupling a qubit to an arbitrary quantum sensor, more general sub-SQL metrology is possible with the techniques presented in this Letter.

arXiv:2008.12231•Physical Review Letters•Apr 8, 2021•184 citations

An open EFT for dark matter searches with matter-wave interferometers

Leonardo Badurina, Kathryn M. Zurek

Matter-wave interferometers (MWIs) are a genuine quantum probe of dark matter (DM), being sensitive to DM-induced phase shifts and loss of contrast. Treating the interferometer as an open quantum system and the dark sector as its environment, we derive an open EFT to study these signatures using the Schwinger-Keldysh formalism. Starting from a microscopic theory, we derive the interferometer's effective action, which we then project onto the many-body worldline sectors relevant for atom interferometers and MWIs employing mesoscopic objects, i.e., composite-particle interferometers (CPIs). This construction clarifies the heavy-probe limit and organizes phase shifts and decoherence as distinct real-time components of the influence action: the retarded kernel controls the causal response of the environment, while the Keldysh kernel controls environmental fluctuations and hence loss of contrast. At leading order, these kernels reduce to: (i) DM bubble diagrams in the case of four-point interactions, and (ii) dressed in-medium mediator propagators in the case of long-range interactions, where the dressing is provided by the DM environment. Within this framework, we study the signatures of elastic spin-independent sub-GeV DM scattering off nucleons and find that: (i) owing to Bose enhancements below the DM wave-particle boundary, ambitious CPIs could probe Higgs-portal DM with mass below 1 eV in an unexplored region of model space; (ii) for DM coupled to nucleons via a light hadrophilic scalar, the DM background can drive the mediator's in-medium mass tachyonic over much of parameter space; outside these regions, CPIs could probe provide powerful probes of light DM.

hep-phCross-listedarXiv:2610.36044•Oct 28, 2026

Quantum Sensing Radiative Decays of Neutrinos and Dark Matter Particles

Zhongtian Dong, Doojin Kim, Kyoungchul Kong +2 more

We explore a novel strategy for detecting the radiative decay of very weakly interacting particles by leveraging the extreme sensitivity of quantum devices, such as superconducting transmon qubits and trapped ion systems, to faint electromagnetic signals. By modeling the effective electric field induced by the decay photons, we evaluate the response of quantum sensors across two particle physics scenarios: the cosmic neutrino background and two-component dark matter. We assess the discovery potential of these devices and outline the parameter space accessible under current experimental capabilities. Our analysis demonstrates that quantum sensors can probe radiative decays of dark matter candidates using existing technology, while probing neutrino magnetic moments beyond current limits will require scalable quantum architectures with collective enhancement.

arXiv:2508.09139•Aug 12, 2025•0 citations
We present a halo-independent framework for sub-GeV dark matter (DM) direct detection using quantum sensors with sub-eV energy thresholds. Such detectors enable access to low DM velocities and may be sensitive to departures from the Standard Halo Model that are challenging to probe with conventional direct DM detection experiments. The method expresses the DM scattering event rate in terms of a detector and particle model-dependent response function, and a universal halo function common to all experiments to be determined from data. This allows the local DM velocity distribution to be constrained. As representative implementations, we consider TES (Al) and MKID (TiN)-like sensors and show that their differing material responses probe complementary regimes of the DM velocity distribution. Applying the framework to mock data derived from several benchmark local halo models, we demonstrate how the assumed halo function could be reconstructed. This framework demonstrates the potential of quantum sensors as a new avenue for mapping the local DM velocity distribution.
The presence of dark matter (DM) stands as one of the most compelling indications of new physics in particle physics. Typically, the detection of wavelike DM involves quantum sensors, such as qubits or cavities. The phase of the sensors is usually discarded as the value of the phase itself is not physically meaningful. However, the difference of the phase between the sensors contains the information of the velocity and direction of the DM wind. We propose a measurement protocol to extract this information from the sensors using quantum states. Our method does not require specific experimental setups and can be applied to any type of DM detector as long as the data from the detectors can be taken quantum mechanically. We also show that our method does not spoil the sensitivity of the DM detectors and is superior to the classical method based on the correlations of the DM signals between the detectors.
We present the design and status of a detector to search for axions and axion-like particles in the galactic halo using quantum-enhanced interferometry. The operating principle is related to previously reported ideas, but aims for axions in the mass range from 10−16 eV up to 10−8 eV. We also show how to apply squeezed states of light to enhance the sensitivity similar to the gravitational-wave detectors. This experiment has the potential to be further scaled up to a multi-kilometre long detector and to then set constraints of the axion-photon coupling coefficient of ∼ 10−18 GeV−1 for axion masses of 10−16 eV, or detect a signal.
Although various pieces of indirect evidence about the nature of dark matter have been collected, its direct detection has eluded experimental searches despite extensive effort. If the mass of dark matter is below 1 MeV, it is essentially imperceptible to conventional detection methods because negligible energy is transferred to nuclei during collisions. Here I propose directly detecting dark matter through the quantum decoherence it causes rather than its classical effects, such as recoil or ionization. I show that quantum spatial superpositions are sensitive to low-mass dark matter that is inaccessible to classical techniques. This provides new independent motivation for matter interferometry with large masses, especially on spaceborne platforms. The apparent dark matter wind we experience as the Sun travels through the Milky Way ensures interferometers and related devices are directional detectors, and so are able to provide unmistakable evidence that decoherence has Galactic origins.
Detection mechanisms for low mass bosonic dark matter candidates, such as the axion or hidden photon, leverage potential interactions with electromagnetic fields, whereby the dark matter (of unknown mass) on rare occasion converts into a single photon. Current dark matter searches operating at microwave frequencies use a resonant cavity to coherently accumulate the field sourced by the dark matter and a near standard quantum limited (SQL) linear amplifier to read out the cavity signal. To further increase sensitivity to the dark matter signal, sub-SQL detection techniques are required. Here we report the development of a novel microwave photon counting technique and a new exclusion limit on hidden photon dark matter. We operate a superconducting qubit to make repeated quantum nondemolition measurements of cavity photons and apply a hidden Markov model analysis to reduce the noise to 15.7 dB below the quantum limit, with overall detector performance limited by a residual background of real photons. With the present device, we perform a hidden photon search and constrain the kinetic mixing angle to ε≤1.68×10^{-15} in a band around 6.011 GHz (24.86 μeV) with an integration time of 8.33 s. This demonstrated noise reduction technique enables future dark matter searches to be sped up by a factor of 1,300. By coupling a qubit to an arbitrary quantum sensor, more general sub-SQL metrology is possible with the techniques presented in this Letter.
Matter-wave interferometers (MWIs) are a genuine quantum probe of dark matter (DM), being sensitive to DM-induced phase shifts and loss of contrast. Treating the interferometer as an open quantum system and the dark sector as its environment, we derive an open EFT to study these signatures using the Schwinger-Keldysh formalism. Starting from a microscopic theory, we derive the interferometer's effective action, which we then project onto the many-body worldline sectors relevant for atom interferometers and MWIs employing mesoscopic objects, i.e., composite-particle interferometers (CPIs). This construction clarifies the heavy-probe limit and organizes phase shifts and decoherence as distinct real-time components of the influence action: the retarded kernel controls the causal response of the environment, while the Keldysh kernel controls environmental fluctuations and hence loss of contrast. At leading order, these kernels reduce to: (i) DM bubble diagrams in the case of four-point interactions, and (ii) dressed in-medium mediator propagators in the case of long-range interactions, where the dressing is provided by the DM environment. Within this framework, we study the signatures of elastic spin-independent sub-GeV DM scattering off nucleons and find that: (i) owing to Bose enhancements below the DM wave-particle boundary, ambitious CPIs could probe Higgs-portal DM with mass below 1 eV in an unexplored region of model space; (ii) for DM coupled to nucleons via a light hadrophilic scalar, the DM background can drive the mediator's in-medium mass tachyonic over much of parameter space; outside these regions, CPIs could probe provide powerful probes of light DM.
We explore a novel strategy for detecting the radiative decay of very weakly interacting particles by leveraging the extreme sensitivity of quantum devices, such as superconducting transmon qubits and trapped ion systems, to faint electromagnetic signals. By modeling the effective electric field induced by the decay photons, we evaluate the response of quantum sensors across two particle physics scenarios: the cosmic neutrino background and two-component dark matter. We assess the discovery potential of these devices and outline the parameter space accessible under current experimental capabilities. Our analysis demonstrates that quantum sensors can probe radiative decays of dark matter candidates using existing technology, while probing neutrino magnetic moments beyond current limits will require scalable quantum architectures with collective enhancement.