Quantum technology expands global network in search for dark matter

A very sensitive quantum sensor of Jena has traveled nearly 9,000 kilometers: by truck in Hamburg, by ship across the Atlantic, and finally by land in Vassouras, Brazil.

On the observatório nacional campus, researchers from Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technology (Leibniz-Ipht) in Jena, as well as Brazilian partners, have installed a new measurement station. It is part of the world GNOME project and is designed to help answer one of the major unresolved questions of modern physics: the nature of dark matter.

The dark matter cannot be directly detected with conventional measurement methods. However, he obviously influences the movement of galaxies and the structure of the cosmos. Understanding your nature remains one of the central open problems of physics.

The international collaboration of GNOME (global network of optical agnometers for research in exotic physics) specifically researches signs of hypothetical particles – among the so -called axions – which could interact with atoms within the magnetometers.

“Our station is based on an optically pumped magnetometer, in which we use laser light to drive cesium atoms in specific quantum states,” explains Dr Theo Scholtes, Leibni-Ipht physicist. “If this state changes – for example, due to a field of darkness that passes – we can measure it with high precision.”

Sensor technology – including magnetic shielding, laser stabilization and system control – has been developed, built and tested in Leibniz -Ipht in Jena.

The new Gnome station in Brazil is the first permanent operating station of the network in the southern hemisphere. This geographic expansion is particularly important for the project. “With the Vassouras station, we improve our ability to triangulate potential events-that is to say to determine their origin more precisely by comparing the signals of several stations. The principle is similar to the way in which gravitational waves are detected,” explains Theo Scholtes.