Exclusion Limits on Hidden-Photon Dark Matter near 2 neV from a Fixed-Frequency Superconducting Lumped-Element Resonator

• Main Authors: Phipps, A, Kuenstner, S. E, Chaudhuri, S, Dawson, C. S, Young, B. A, FitzGerald, C. T, Froland, H, Wells, K, Li, D, Cho, H. M, Rajendran, S, Graham, P. W, Irwin, K. D
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 20.06.2019
• Subjects: Physics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics; Physics - Instrumentation and Detectors
• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.1906.08814

We present the design and performance of a simple fixed-frequency superconducting lumped-element resonator developed for axion and hidden photon dark matter detection. A rectangular NbTi inductor was coupled to a Nb-coated sapphire capacitor and immersed in liquid helium within a superconducting shield. The resonator was transformer-coupled to a DC SQUID for readout. We measured a quality factor of $\sim$40,000 at the resonant frequency of 492.027 kHz and set a simple exclusion limit on $\sim$2 neV hidden photons with kinetic mixing angle $\varepsilon\gtrsim1.5\times10^{-9}$ based on 5.14 hours of integrated noise. This test device informs the development of the Dark Matter Radio, a tunable superconducting lumped-element resonator which will search for axions and hidden photons over the 100 Hz to 300 MHz frequency range.