Project Grant 2209473

This three-year, $449,837 National Science Foundation project grant funds the development of optomechanical dark matter detectors at the University of Arizona from November 2022 through October 2025. The award supports work under the NSF Mathematical and Physical Sciences program (CFDA 47.049), which aims to advance scientific knowledge and understanding in these fields.

Specifically, the project will join experimental and theoretical researchers to explore detection of ultralight "dark photon" dark matter using an array of cryogenic optomechanical accelerometers. Each accelerometer is based on a frequency-tunable, ultra-high quality silicon nitride membrane coupled to an optical cavity. In the exploratory first phase, a prototype detector will be developed using a single centimeter-scale membrane in a 4 Kelvin cryostat, with the goal of surpassing current constraints on dark photon dark matter in the 1.0E-9 to 1.0E-11 electronvolt mass range set by torsion balance experiments. Longer term efforts target an order-of-magnitude improvement through an array of photonic crystal membranes probed at the standard quantum limit, enabling additional fundamental weak force tests.