Dark matter detection using nuclear magnetization in magnet with hyperfine interaction

Abstract

We consider the possibility to detect cosmic light dark matter (DM), i.e., axions and dark photons, of mass $\sim 10^{-6}$ eV and $\sim 10^{-4}$ eV, by magnetic excitation in a magnet with strong hyperfine interaction. In particular, we consider a canted anti-ferromagnet, MnCO${}_3$, as a concrete candidate material. With spin transfer between nuclear and electron spins allowed by the hyperfine interaction, nuclear spins become naturally highly polarized due to an effective (electron-spin-induced) magnetic field, and have long-range interactions with each other. The collective precession of nuclear spins, i.e., a nuclear magnon, can be generated by the DM field through the nucleon-DM interaction, while they are also sensitive to the electron-DM interaction through the electron-nuclear spin mixing. Compared with conventional nuclear-spin precession experiments, this system as a DM sensor is sensitive to higher frequency needing only a small static magnetic field applied. The system also has collective precession of electron spins, mixed with nuclear spins, as the additional channels that can be used for DM probes. We estimate the sensitivity under appropriate readout setups such as an inductive pick-up loop associated with an LC resonant circuit, or a photon cavity with a photon counting device. We show that this method covers an unexplored parameter region of light bosonic DM.

56 pages, 9 figures, 5 tables; v2: corrected typos, added figure of unit cell of MnCO3 (Fig. 1), changed reference mass of material MnCO3 from 1.5 kg to 1 kg, added footnote about nuclear eigenfrequencies, conclusions unchanged

References in corpus (14)

• Dark Matter Results From 54-Ton-Day Exposure of PandaX-II Experiment
• Flaxion: a minimal extension to solve puzzles in the standard model
• Detection of sub-MeV Dark Matter with Three-Dimensional Dirac Materials
• Stellar Recipes for Axion Hunters
• Revisiting the axion bounds from the Galactic white dwarf luminosity function
• Dark Photon Dark Matter from a Network of Cosmic Strings
• Limits on Axion Couplings from the first 80-day data of PandaX-II Experiment
• Search for axion-like dark matter using solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance
• Exploring Two Higgs Doublet Models Through Higgs Production
• Source mass characterization in the ARIADNE axion experiment
• Dark Matter Absorption via Electronic Excitations
• Normal-mode splitting in the coupled system of hybridized nuclear magnons and microwave photons
• Observation of nuclear-spin Seebeck effect
• Nuclear shape transitions and elastic magnetic electron scattering

Cited by in corpus (10)

• From Supernovae to Neutron Stars: A Systematic Approach to Axion Production at Finite Density
• Physical Signatures of Fermion-Coupled Axion Dark Matter
• Nuclear Spin Metrology with Nitrogen Vacancy Center in Diamond for Axion Dark Matter Detection
• Misalignment production of vector boson dark matter from axion-SU(2) inflation
• The statistics and sensitivity of axion wind detection with the homogeneous precession domain of superfluid helium-3
• Axion detection via superfluid ${}^3$He ferromagnetic phase and quantum measurement techniques
• Effects of Finite Material Size On Axion-magnon Conversion
• Directional search for light dark matter with quantum sensors
• Flavor-changing axions and Dirac neutrino masses
• Field Dispersion and Strong Coupling of Nuclear-Electron Spin Excitation in MnCO${}_3$