WISPLC: Search for Dark Matter with LC Circuit

TL;DR

WISPLC is a novel experiment designed to detect ultralight axion-like dark matter particles using LC circuits, aiming to explore previously untested parameter spaces with high sensitivity.

Contribution

The paper introduces the WISPLC experiment, a new broadband and resonant detection scheme utilizing LC circuits to search for axion-like particles in unexplored mass ranges.

Findings

Sensitivity to axion-photon coupling of ~10^{-15} GeV^{-1}

Operates in a broad mass range from 10^{-11} to 10^{-6} eV

Uses a high-Q LC circuit to enhance detection capabilities.

Abstract

The focus on dark matter search has expanded to include low-mass particles such as axions or axion-like particles, and novel theoretical schemes extending the phenomenological landscape, within QCD and beyond, also garnered additional interest in recent decades. Assuming dark matter is composed of axions, in presence of a solenoidal magnetic field, they induce a displacement current that gives rise to a toroidal magnetic field. The Weakly Interacting Slender Particle detection with LC circuit (WISPLC) is a precision direct detection experiment that will search for light dark matter candidates such as axion-like particles in parts of the parameter space previously unexplored. We present two detection schemes of the signal in a pickup loop capturing the flux of this toroidal magnetic field. WISPLC operates in a broadband and a resonant scheme where a LC circuit is used to enhance the signal with an expected Q factor $\sim 10^4$. Taking into account the irreducible flux noise of the detector, we estimate the sensitivity of the experiment in the axion mass range between $10^{-11}$ eV and $10^{-6}$ eV to reach a detectable axion-photon coupling of $g_{a\gamma\gamma}\approx 10^{-15}~\mathrm{GeV}^{-1}$, making it possible to probe mass ranges corresponding to ultralight axions motivated by string theory. The WISPLC experiment is fully funded and currently in the construction phase.