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Penning trap single-photon counter for axion detection

Jack A. Devlin*, Marko L. Wojtkowiak, Shreyak R. Banhatti, He Zhang, Jiacheng Shi, Toren S. Dofher, Jonathan M. H. Gosling, Michael R. Tarbutt, and Richard C. Thompson

  • Centre for Cold Matter, Blackett Laboratory, Imperial College London, Prince Consort Road, London SW7 2AZ, United Kingdom

  • *Contact author: j.devlin11@imperial.ac.uk
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Phys. Rev. Research 8, 043082 – Published 22 October, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/pg4b-jpg2

Abstract

Discovering the microscopic composition of dark matter is one of the most important open problems in physics today. Axions are a leading candidate to be dark matter; however, a search of the full range of all likely axion masses is hampered by the standard quantum noise limit. This makes haloscope searches for axions with masses above ∼100µeV unfeasible with current technologies. To overcome this limitation, we propose a photon counting technique designed to operate at 30–60 GHz for detecting axions with masses between 124 and 248µeV, based on a single electron in a Penning trap. The electron cyclotron mode absorbs microwave photons, and, via the continuous Stern-Gerlach effect, this absorption imparts a measurable phase shift onto the axial motion. In this paper, we comprehensively analyze this photon detection method. We introduce a type of fast, phase-sensitive axial detection technique, using axial-magnetron parametric amplification to overcome detector Johnson noise and cancel associated frequency shifts. This method may find other applications in precision Penning trap frequency measurements. We compare the efficiency of the electron single-photon counter with an ideal device and find that our proposed photon counter has sufficient performance to search for high-mass axions.

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Phys. Rev. Research 8, 043082– Published 22 October, 2026
  • Received 2 March 2026
  • Accepted 3 June 2026
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