Axion detection via superfluid $^3$He ferromagnetic phase and quantum measurement techniques

TL;DR

This paper proposes a novel method for axion dark matter detection using nuclear spin excitations in superfluid helium-3, employing quantum measurement techniques to enhance sensitivity to axion-nucleon coupling.

Contribution

It introduces a new detection approach utilizing superfluid helium-3's ferromagnetic phase and quantum measurement enhancements for axion detection.

Findings

Sensitive to axion-nucleon coupling at ~1 μeV mass range

Quantum squeezing and homodyne detection improve measurement sensitivity

Estimates feasible experimental parameters for QCD axion detection

Abstract

We propose to use the nuclear spin excitation in the ferromagnetic A1 phase of the superfluid $^3$He for the axion dark matter detection. This approach is striking in that it is sensitive to the axion-nucleon coupling, one of the most important features of the QCD axion introduced to solve the strong CP problem. We review a quantum mechanical description of the nuclear spin excitation and apply it to the estimation of the axion-induced spin excitation rate. We also describe a possible detection method of the spin excitation in detail and show that the combination of the squeezing of the final state with the Josephson parametric amplifier and the homodyne measurement can enhance the sensitivity. It turns out that this approach gives good sensitivity to the axion dark matter with the mass of $O(1) \, \mu \mathrm{eV}$ depending on the size of the external magnetic field. We estimate the parameters of experimental setups, e.g., the detector volume and the amplitude of squeezing, required to reach the QCD axion parameter space.