Calibration of the Cryogenic Measurement System of a Resonant Haloscope Cavity

Abstract

Possible light bosonic dark matter interactions with the Standard Model photon have been searched by microwave resonant cavities. In this paper, we demonstrate the cryogenic readout system calibration of a 7.138 GHz copper cavity with a loaded quality factor $Q_l=10^4$, operated at 22 mK temperature based on a dilution refrigerator. Our readout system consists of High Electron Mobility Transistors as cryogenic amplifiers at 4 K, plus room-temperature amplifiers and a spectrum analyzer for signal power detection. We test the system with a superconducting two-level system as a single-photon source in the microwave frequency regime and report an overall 95.6 dB system gain and -71.4 dB attenuation in the cavity's input channel. The effective noise temperature of the measurement system is 7.5 K.

Comments: 7 pages, 5 figures, version to appear in CPC