Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: The axion is a well-motivated hypothetical particle capable of resolving both the strong CP problem and the dark matter mystery, with recent post-inflationary cosmological simulations favoring masses above 40 μeV. Plasma haloscopes serve as a promising experimental approach to reach theoretically preferred sensitivities in this mass range. ALPHA, hosted at Yale Wright Laboratory, is an international collaboration developing plasma haloscopes to search for QCD dark matter axions. In this letter we present the detailed design and sensitivity projection for the first phase of the ALPHA experiment, which will search the mass range from 10 GHz to 20 GHz (~40 μeV to 80 μeV). This search will make use of wire-array plasma resonators to decouple the physical size from the resonant frequency, a limitation typically faced by traditional microwave cavities, allowing broadband sensitivity approaching KSVZ coupling strengths.
Source: arXiv (Cornell University)
Authors: ALPHA Collaboration, Bai, Xiran, Balafendiev, Rustam, Barrett, Sean E., Beato, Eunice, Belov, Pavel, Brown, Charles D., Muñoz, Eduardo A. Castro, Conrad, Jan, Demarteau, Marcel, Droster, Alex, Dubois, Joseph, Echevers, Jonathan, Elhadi, Ali, Enriquez, Jim, Esmat, Maryam Haytham, Rosso, Andrea Gallo, Graham, Eleanor, Greenstein, Chloe, Gudmundsson, Jon E., Heeger, Karsten M., Iyer, Ishaan, Jackson, Heather, Jeong, Junu, Jewell, Michael J., Johnson, Tyler, Jois, Shriram, Kaur, Gagandeep, Laffan, Claire, Lehnert, K. W., Lewis, Samantha M., Lindahl, Jacob, Maruyama, Reina H., Mauskopf, Philip, Meyer, Andrew M., Millar, Alexander J., Miller, Dylan R., Peiris, Hiranya V., Qi, Jianyang, Ruddy, Elizabeth P., Sahoo, Sharada, Sakhno, Denis, Sekatchev, Michael, Silva-Feaver, Max, Shi, Shenyang, Sindhwad, Aarav M., Singh, Gaganpreet, Singh, Sukhman, Speller, Danielle H., Sun, Dajie, Tabassum, Noshin, van Bibber, Karl, Wang, Yongqi, Wilczek, Frank, Wooten, Mackenzie, Zacarias, Sabrina
Institutions: Yale University, University of Iceland, New Uzbekistan University, Stockholm University, AlbaNova, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, Arizona State University, Johns Hopkins University, Wellesley College, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Institute of Astronomy, University of Colorado Boulder, University of California, Santa Barbara
Language: English
Subfield: Nuclear and High Energy Physics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funders: National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Energy, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, John Templeton Foundation, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Temple University, Knut och Alice Wallenbergs Stiftelse, Vetenskapsrådet, Háskóli Íslands, Stockholms Universitet, Office of Science, High Energy Physics
Awards: Collaborative Research: HAYSTAC Post-Inflation, Detecting Axion Dark Matter In The Sky And In The Lab, Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP), Collaborative Research: HAYSTAC Post-Inflation, Collaborative Research: HAYSTAC Quantum Enhanced, Collaborative Research: ADMX-HF Early Start, TOWARD HIGH-MASS AXION SEARCHES WITH PLASMA HALOSCOPES
OpenAlex ID: W7202295689