Photon counting for axion interferometry

TL;DR

This paper proposes a photon counting interferometry experiment to detect axions, demonstrating significant sensitivity improvements and scalability potential for probing axion-photon interactions in the galactic halo.

Contribution

It introduces a novel photon counting method for axion detection that surpasses previous quantum measurement techniques in sensitivity and scalability.

Findings

Photon counting improves sensitivity by a factor of 50 over heterodyne readout.

Potential to detect axion-photon coupling coefficients as low as 1E-17 to 1E-16 GeV-1.

Scalable design for kilometer-long optical resonators.

Abstract

Axions and axion-like particles are well-motivated dark matter candidates. We propose an experiment that uses single photon detection interferometry to search for axions and axion-like particles in the galactic halo. We show that photon counting with a dark rate of 6E-6 Hz can improve the quantum sensitivity of axion interferometry by a factor of 50 compared to the quantum-enhanced heterodyne readout for 5-m long optical resonators. The proposed experimental method has the potential to be scaled up to kilometer-long facilities, enabling the detection or setting of constraints on the axion-photon coupling coefficient of 1E-17 - 1E-16 GeV-1 for axion masses ranging from 0.1 to 1 neV.