Alladi Ramakrishnan Hall

Mesoscopic quantum systems to detect light dark matter

Anirban Das

SNU, South Korea

In the last few years, many condensed matter systems have been proposed as possible detectors of light sub-GeV dark matter particles, some of which are already being used in experiments. In this talk, I'll describe the mechanisms behind them and introduce a novel way to use superconductor-based quantum devices to measure the power deposition from dark matter scattering. These devices use the sharp transition behavior of superconducting materials to detect tiny 10 meV scale energy deposition, and hence, can measure very small amounts of power. The existing data already put competitive constraints on dark matter-nuclear scattering cross section. Finally, I'll outline ways to improve the sensitivity and how the development of quantum computers could benefit dark matter search.