TY - JOUR

T1 - Clock transitions versus Bragg diffraction in atom-interferometric dark-matter detection

AU - Derr, Daniel

AU - Giese, Enno

N1 - Funding Information: We thank F. Di Pumpo, A. Friedrich, A. Geyer, C. Ufrecht, as well as the QUANTUS and INTENTAS teams for fruitful and interesting discussions. The QUANTUS and INTENTAS projects are supported by the German Space Agency at the German Aerospace Center (Deutsche Raumfahrtagentur im Deutschen Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt, DLR) with funds provided by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Klimaschutz, BMWK) due to an enactment of the German Bundestag under Grant No. 50WM2250E (QUANTUS+) as well as 50WM2177 (INTENTAS). E.G. thanks the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG) for a Mercator Fellowship within CRC 1227 (DQ-mat).

PY - 2023/12

Y1 - 2023/12

N2 - Atom interferometers with long baselines are envisioned to complement the ongoing search for dark matter. They rely on atomic manipulation based on internal (clock) transitions or state-preserving atomic diffraction. Principally, dark matter can act on the internal as well as the external degrees of freedom to both of which atom interferometers are susceptible. We, therefore, study in this contribution the effects of dark matter on the internal atomic structure and the atom's motion. In particular, we show that the atomic transition frequency depends on the mean coupling and the differential coupling of the involved states to dark matter, scaling with the unperturbed atomic transition frequency and the Compton frequency, respectively. The differential coupling is only of relevance when internal states change, which makes detectors, e.g., based on single-photon transitions sensitive to both coupling parameters. For sensors generated by state-preserving diffraction mechanisms like Bragg diffraction, the mean coupling modifies only the motion of the atom as the dominant contribution. Finally, we compare both effects observed in terrestrial dark-matter detectors.

AB - Atom interferometers with long baselines are envisioned to complement the ongoing search for dark matter. They rely on atomic manipulation based on internal (clock) transitions or state-preserving atomic diffraction. Principally, dark matter can act on the internal as well as the external degrees of freedom to both of which atom interferometers are susceptible. We, therefore, study in this contribution the effects of dark matter on the internal atomic structure and the atom's motion. In particular, we show that the atomic transition frequency depends on the mean coupling and the differential coupling of the involved states to dark matter, scaling with the unperturbed atomic transition frequency and the Compton frequency, respectively. The differential coupling is only of relevance when internal states change, which makes detectors, e.g., based on single-photon transitions sensitive to both coupling parameters. For sensors generated by state-preserving diffraction mechanisms like Bragg diffraction, the mean coupling modifies only the motion of the atom as the dominant contribution. Finally, we compare both effects observed in terrestrial dark-matter detectors.

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85180317593&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.48550/arXiv.2309.09538

DO - 10.48550/arXiv.2309.09538

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85180317593

VL - 5

JO - AVS Quantum Science

JF - AVS Quantum Science

IS - 4

M1 - 044404

ER -