Quantum sensing with qubits has advanced fundamental physics searches, but higher dimensional systems offer largely unexplored potential. We show that in ultralight dark matter searches spin-1 NV-center qutrits exploiting common mode noise suppression achieve an order of magnitude improvement in axion-electron coupling sensitivity over qubit-based schemes. While enhanced quantum Fisher information in multilevel systems is known abstractly, we demonstrate its explicit realization in a realistic open quantum system via an optimal protocol saturating the Cramer-Rao bound, yielding a universal fourfold enhancement. This principle applies broadly to multilevel quantum platforms, including superconducting, neutral atom, and trapped-ion systems, establishing higher dimensional sensing as a powerful probe of new physics.

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• Particle dark matter
• Phenomenology
• Qudits
• Hypothetical particles
• Qubits
• Dark matter detectors