Measurement of high quality factor superconducting cavities in tesla-scale magnetic fields for dark matter searches

Understand

In dark matter searches using axion haloscopes, the search sensitivity depends on the quality factors ($Q_0$) of radiofrequency cavities immersed in multi-tesla magnetic fields.

• Increasing $Q_0$ would increase the scan rate through the parameter space of interest.
• Researchers developing superconducting radiofrequency cavities for particle accelerators have developed methods for obtaining extremely high $Q_0\sim10^{11}$ in $\mu$T-scale magnetic fields.
• In this paper, we describe efforts to develop high Q cavities made from Nb$_3$Sn films using a technique developed for particle accelerator cavities.