Long-baseline quantum sensor network as dark matter haloscope

Min Jiang; Taizhou Hong; Dongdong Hu; Yifan Chen; Fengwei Yang; Tao Hu; Xiaodong Yang; Jing Shu; Yue Zhao; Xinhua Peng; Jiangfeng Du

doi:10.1038/s41467-024-47566-0

Long-baseline quantum sensor network as dark matter haloscope

Nat Commun. 2024 Apr 18;15(1):3331. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-47566-0.

Authors

Min Jiang^#^{1

2

3}, Taizhou Hong^#^{1

2

3}, Dongdong Hu^#^{3

4}, Yifan Chen⁵, Fengwei Yang⁶, Tao Hu⁷, Xiaodong Yang⁷, Jing Shu^{8

9

10}, Yue Zhao¹¹, Xinhua Peng^{12

13

14}, Jiangfeng Du^{1

2

3

15}

Affiliations

¹ CAS Key Laboratory of Microscale Magnetic Resonance and School of Physical Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, 230026, China.
² CAS Center for Excellence in Quantum Information and Quantum Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, 230026, China.
³ Hefei National Laboratory, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230088, China.
⁴ State Key Laboratory of Particle Detection and Electronics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, 230026, China.
⁵ Niels Bohr International Academy, Niels Bohr Institute, Blegdamsvej 17, Copenhagen, 2100, Denmark.
⁶ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, 84112, USA.
⁷ Suzhou Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Technology Chinese Academy of Sciences, Suzhou, Jiangsu, 215163, China.
⁸ School of Physics and State Key Laboratory of Nuclear Physics and Technology, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China. jshu@pku.edu.cn.
⁹ Center for High Energy Physics, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China. jshu@pku.edu.cn.
¹⁰ Beijing Laser Acceleration Innovation Center, Huairou, Beijing, 101400, China. jshu@pku.edu.cn.
¹¹ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, 84112, USA. zhaoyue@physics.utah.edu.
¹² CAS Key Laboratory of Microscale Magnetic Resonance and School of Physical Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, 230026, China. xhpeng@ustc.edu.cn.
¹³ CAS Center for Excellence in Quantum Information and Quantum Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, 230026, China. xhpeng@ustc.edu.cn.
¹⁴ Hefei National Laboratory, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230088, China. xhpeng@ustc.edu.cn.
¹⁵ Institute of Quantum Sensing and School of Physics, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310027, China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Ultralight dark photons constitute a well-motivated candidate for dark matter. A coherent electromagnetic wave is expected to be induced by dark photons when coupled with Standard-Model photons through kinetic mixing mechanism, and should be spatially correlated within the de Broglie wavelength of dark photons. Here we report the first search for correlated dark-photon signals using a long-baseline network of 15 atomic magnetometers, which are situated in two separated meter-scale shield rooms with a distance of about 1700 km. Both the network's multiple sensors and the shields large size significantly enhance the expected dark-photon electromagnetic signals, and long-baseline measurements confidently reduce many local noise sources. Using this network, we constrain the kinetic mixing coefficient of dark photon dark matter over the mass range 4.1 feV-2.1 peV, which represents the most stringent constraints derived from any terrestrial experiments operating over the aforementioned mass range. Our prospect indicates that future data releases may go beyond the astrophysical constraints from the cosmic microwave background and the plasma heating.