Superconducting Radio Frequency Cavities as Axion Dark Matter Detectors

Abstract

A modification of the cavity technique for axion dark matter detection is described in which the cavity is driven with input power instead of being permeated by a static magnetic field. A small fraction of the input power is pumped by the axion field to a receiving mode of frequency ${\omega }_1$ when the resonance condition ${\omega }_1={\omega }_0\pm m_a$ is satisfied, where ${\omega }_0$ is the frequency of the input mode and $m_a$ the axion mass. The relevant form factor is calculated for any pair of input and output modes in a cylindrical cavity. The overall search strategy is discussed and the technical challenges to be overcome by an actual experiment are listed.

Comments: 4 pages, 1 figure. The new version gives a more realistic discussion of the challenges involved in carrying out the proposed experiment