A dipole amplifier for electric dipole moments, axion-like particles and a dense dark matter hairs detector

TL;DR

This paper introduces a dipole amplifier device capable of rapidly constraining parameters related to electric dipole moments, axion-like particles, and dense dark matter structures, with high sensitivity and potential space-based applications.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel superconducting loop-based dipole amplifier that can detect and constrain beyond-standard-model physics parameters in minutes, including dark matter interactions.

Findings

Achieves bounds on EDM and ALP coupling constants.

Detects oscillatory supercurrents induced by EDM and ALPs.

Sensitive enough to identify dark matter density variations in space.

Abstract

A tool that can constrain, in minutes, beyond-the-standard-model parameters like electric dipole moments (EDM) down to a lower-bound $d_\text{e}^{\cal{N}}<10^{-37}\text{e}\cdot\text{cm}$ in bulk materials, or the coupling of axion-like particles (ALP) to photons down to $|G_{a\gamma\gamma}|<10^{-16}$~GeV$^{-1}$, is described. Best limits are $d^n_e<3\cdot10^{-26}\text{e}\cdot\text{cm}$ for neutron EDM and $|G_{a\gamma\gamma}|<6.6\cdot10^{-11}$~GeV$^{-1}$. The {\it dipole amplifier} is built from a superconducting loop immersed in a toroidal magnetic field, $\vec{B}$. When nuclear magnetic moments in the London penetration depth align with $\vec{B}$, the bulk magnetization is always accompanied by an EDM-induced bulk electric field $\vec{E}\propto\vec{B}$ that generates detectable oscillatory supercurrents with a characteristic frequency $\omega_{\text{D}}\propto d_\text{e}^{\cal{N}}$. Cold dark matter (CDM) ALP are formally similar where $\omega_\text{D}\propto |G_{a\gamma\gamma}|\sqrt{n_a/(2m_a)}$ with $m_a$ the ALP mass and $n_a$ its number density. A space probe traversing a dark matter hair with a dipole amplifier is sensitive enough to detect ALP density variations if $|G_{a\gamma\gamma}|\sqrt{n_h/(2m_a)}>4.9\cdot10^{-27}$ where $n_h$ is the ALP number density in the hair.