Detecting dark matter using optically trapped Rydberg atom tweezer arrays

TL;DR

This paper proposes a novel method for detecting wave-like dark matter using Rydberg atom arrays, leveraging their sensitivity to DM-induced electric fields and energy level shifts.

Contribution

It introduces a new detection scheme employing optically trapped Rydberg atoms and demonstrates potential to explore previously untested dark-photon parameter space.

Findings

High sensitivity to dark-photon coupling strengths and masses.

Ability to scan over a range of DM masses using Zeeman and diamagnetic shifts.

Potential to probe unexplored regions of dark-photon parameter space.

Abstract

A new scheme for detecting wave-like dark matter (DM) using Rydberg atoms is proposed. Recent advances in trapping and manipulating Rydberg atoms make it possible to use Rydberg atoms trapped in optical tweezer arrays for DM detection. We propose to prepare a large ensemble of Rydberg atoms and to observe the excitations between Rydberg states by the DM-induced effective electric field. A scan over DM mass is enabled with the use of the Zeeman and diamagnetic shifts of energy levels under an applied external magnetic field. Taking dark-photon DM as an example, we demonstrate that our proposed experiment can have high enough sensitivity to probe previously unexplored regions of the parameter space of dark-photon coupling strengths and masses.