For decades, physicists have been searching for dark matter, which doesn’t emit light but appears to make up the vast majority of matter in the universe. Several theoretical particles have been proposed as dark matter candidates, including weakly interacting massive particles—called WIMPs—and axions.
Fermilab’s Aaron Chou is leading a multi-institutional consortium to apply the techniques of quantum metrology to the problem of detecting axion dark matter. The project, which brings together scientists at Fermilab, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the University of Chicago, University of Colorado and Yale University, was recently awarded $2.1 million over two years through the Department of Energy’s Quantum Information Science-Enabled Discovery (QuantISED) program, which seeks to advance science through quantum-based technologies.
If the scientists succeed, the discovery could solve several cosmological mysteries at once.
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