About

Dark matter appears to constitute 84% of the material in the universe and maybe be composed of as yet unidentified particles. Detecting dark matter requires sophisticated experiments due to its minimal interaction with ordinary matter. The Quantum Enhanced Particle Astrophysics (QuEPA) project aims to detect dark matter, particularly a particle called the axion, using Penning trapped electrons and resonant cavity antennas. Axions are hypothesized particles which were first predicted to explain phenomena like the very small value of the neutron electric dipole moment and may compose all dark matter. QuEPA's method involves enhancing axion-to-photon conversion in a resonant cavity, and then developing sensitive quantum sensors to detect microwave photons from axion decays in that cavity. We plan to use single electrons in Penning Traps as our quantum sensors.  The project also explores the use of Penning traps to investigate other possible types of dark matter like millicharged particles.

Find out more

You can find out more on our project page Dark Matter Detection

Contact

For more information, please contact Dr. Jack Devlin (j.devlin11@imperial.ac.uk)