Detecting Light Boson Dark Matter through Conversion into Magnon

Abstract

Light boson dark matter such as axion or hidden photon can be resonantly converted into a magnon in a magnetic insulator under the magnetic field, which can be detected experimentally. We provide a quantum mechanical formulation for the magnon event rate and show that the result is consistent with that obtained by a classical calculation. Besides, it is pointed out that the experimental setup of the QUAX proposal for the axion detection also works as a detector of hidden photon dark matter. It has good sensitivity in the mass range around 1 meV, which is beyond astrophysical constraints.

Comments: 24 pages, 2 figures