The ADMX search for axion dark matter

P. Sikivie (CERN & U. of Florida) Moriond 2006

La Thuile, March 16, 2006

Outline
Introduction Axion cosmology Dark matter axion detection the Axion Dark Matter eXperiment Phase-space structure of CDM halos A high resolution search

The Strong CP Problem

LQCD g % G a G a = ... + 32 2
2

Because the strong interactions 1010 . conserve P and CP, The Standard Model does not provide a reason for to be so tiny, but a relatively small modification of the model does provide a reason

If a U PQ (1) symmetry is assumed,

a g a % a + 1 a a + ... L = ... + G G 2 f a 32 2
2

a = fa

relaxes to zero,

and a light neutral pseudoscalar particle is predicted: the axion.

ma
f f

106 GeV 6 eV fa

La f f

a = i gf fa

f 5 f

La

a ur ur EB = g fa
= 0.97 in KSVZ model 0.36 in DFSZ model

The remaining axion window

105

1010
1

1015
105

f a (GeV)
1010

ma (eV)
laboratory searches

cosmology stellar evolution

Axions are cold dark matter

Density

105 eV ma

7 6

Velocity dispersion

v a ( t0 )

105 eV 17 3 10 c ma

5 6

Effective temperature
Ta , eff (t0 )
105 eV 1034 ma
2 3

There are two axion populations: hot and cold.

T1

t1
When the axion mass turns on, at QCD time, 7 t1 2 10 sec T1 1 GeV

pa (t1 ) =

t1

3 109 eV

Axion production by vacuum realignment

V V

T 1 GeV

T 1 GeV
2

na (t1 )
a (t0 )

1 2

ma (t1 ) a(t1 )

2t1
3

f a 2 (t1 )2
7 6
initial misalignment angle

R1 ma na (t1 ) ma R0

If inflation after the PQ phase transition

. .

105 eV (t1 ) 2 0.25 ma

7 6

may be accidentally suppressed

<
a a

a >
2

HI 2
HI f a (t1 ) 106

produces isocurvature density perturbations

iso curvature

CMBR constraint

If no inflation after the PQ phase transition

. .

cold axions are produced by vacuum realignment, string decay and wall decay

105 eV 0.5 ma

7 6

axion miniclusters appear

105 eV 1013 M ma
5 3

M mc

lmc

105 eV 1013 cm ma

1 6

Axion dark matter is detectable

a

La
X

u r B0

a ur ur EB = g fa

ur E TM 001

u r B0

A/D

FFT

h = ma c (1 +
2

1 2

)
2

v = c

103

dP d

Qa
1

Qa

106

ma c 2 / h

QL 1

a
conversion power on resonance
g P = V B0 2 a C ma 1 QL fa
2

= 2 10

22

V B0 C Watt 500 liter 7 Tesla 0.4

2

a g ma c 2 QL 0.36 5 1025 gr/cm 3 h GHz 105

2

search rate for s/n = 4

df 1.2 GHz P 3K = 22 dt year 2 10 Watt Tn
2 2

ADMX Collaboration
LLNL: S. Asztalos, C. Hagmann, D. Kinion, L.J Rosenberg, K. van Bibber, D. Yu U of Florida: L. Duffy, P. Sikivie, D. Tanner NRAO: R. Bradley

Axion Dark Matter eXperiment

High resolution analysis of the signal may reveal fine structure

ADMX hardware
high Q cavity experimental insert

ADMX hemt amplifiers

ADMX

MedRes

limits

Upgrade with SQUID Amplifiers

IB
The basic SQUID amplifier is a fluxto-voltage transducer

Vo (t)
SQUID noise arises from Nyquist noise in shunt resistance scales linearly with T

However, SQUIDs of conventional design are poor amplifiers above 100 MHz (parasitic couplings).

Flux-bias to here

ADMX Upgrade: replace HEMTs (2 K) with SQUIDs (50 mK)

In phase II of the upgrade, the experiment is cooled with a dilution refrigerator.

SQUIDs packaged into amplifiers

SQUIDs mounted on fridge Darin Kinion

The magnetic field needs to be cancelled at the location of the SQUID.

From outwards-in: Iron shield Cryoperm (mumetal) shields Superconducting shields SQUID amplifier package SQUIDs

The upgrade will be sensitive to the more pessimistically-coupled axions even if they are a minority fraction of the dark-matter halo.

4 cavity array engineering run

Piezo motors have low power dissipation, work at low temperatures and high magnetic fields

h = ma c (1 +
2

1 2

)
2

v = c

103

dP d

Qa
1

Qa

106

ma c 2 / h

QL 1

The cold dark matter particles lie on

a 3-dimensional sheet in 6-dimensional phase space

z

the physical density is the projection of the phase space sheet onto position space

u r r r u r r v (r, t) = ( t) r + v (r, t)

The cold dark matter particles lie on

a 3-dimensional sheet in 6-dimensional phase space

z

the physical density is the projection of the phase space sheet onto position space

u r r r u r r v (r, t) = ( t) r + v (r, t)

Implications:
1. At every point in physical space, the distribution of velocities is discrete, each velocity corresponding to a particular flow at that location. 2. At some locations in physical space, where the number of flows changes, there is a caustic, i.e. the density of dark matter is very high there.

Phase space structure of spherically symmetric halos

(from Binney and Tremaines book)

simulation by Arvind Natarajan

The caustic ring cross-section

D-4 an elliptic umbilic catastrophe

The Big Flow

density

d 5 1.7 10
u r

24

gr/cm

previous estimates of the total local halo density -24 range from 0.5 to 0.75 10 gr/cm 3

velocity

$ v5 (470 100 $ ) km/s r

$ in the direction of galactic rotation

$ in the direction away from the galactic center r

velocity dispersion

v5 < 50 m/s

Experimental implications
for dark matter axion searches - peaks in the energy spectrum of microwave photons from a conversion in the cavity detector - high resolution analysis of the signal yields a more sensitive search (with L. Duffy and ADMX collab.) for dark matter WIMP searches - plateaux in the recoil energy spectrum from elastic WIMP collisions with target nuclei - the flux is largest around December
(Vergados; Green; Gelmini and Gondolo; Ling, Wick &PS)

High resolution analysis of the signal may reveal fine structure

an environmental peak, as seen in the medium and high resolution channels

ADMX limit using high resolution (HR) channel

for

3 0 0 k m /s v 1 2 m /s v

Conclusions
Axions remain a viable cold dark matter candidate. The upgraded ADMX will be able to find axions at even a fraction of the halo density. Remaining challenge: widen the searchable axion mass range. If an axion signal is found, it will provide a rich trove of information on the structure of the Milky Way halo.

- the number of flows at our location in the Milky Way halo is of order 100 - small subhalos from hierarchical structure formation produce an effective velocity dispersion

v eff 30 km/s
but do not destroy the sheet structure in phase space - the known inhomogeneities in the distribution of matter are insufficient to diffuse the flows by gravitational scattering - present N-body simulations do not have enough particles to resolve the flows and caustics
(see however: Stiff and Widrow, Bertschinger and Shirokov)

Hierarchical clustering introduces effective velocity dispersion

v eff

veff 30 km/s