Speaker
Description
The Any Light Particle Search II (ALPS II) experiment located at DESY Hamburg, Germany, is designed to probe the existence of axions and axion-like particles. The existence of these weakly interacting particles is motivated by a solution to the strong CP-problem and being promising dark matter candidates. The ALPS II experiment is ultimately a light-shining-through-wall experiment featuring a 1064 nm laser, where the predicted axion-photon coupling enables photons to emerge on the other side of an opaque barrier. The estimated photon reconversion rate of $10^{-5}$ Hz, corresponding on average a single photon per day, sets the upper limit for the background (dark count) rate required for statistically significant detection of axions. Such a low background rate requires a sensor with excellent energy resolution and quantum efficiency along with sufficiently short dead time. We are characterizing superconducting Transition Edge Sensors (TES) which have shown to meet the above criteria. This presentation gives an overall description of the ALPS II experiment, followed by a more detailed inspection of our two ongoing projects aimed to improve the background discrimination for the TES. These include i) physically preventing black-body photons from reaching the TES using a custom built cryogenic filter bench and ii) utilizing advanced machine learning techniques to distinguish between the 1064 nm photon induced pulses and background, such as multiple lower energy pile-up photons. The presented results should be considered interesting for a broader audience working with single-photon detection.
Details
Dr. Elmeri Rivasto (postdoc), CP3-Origins, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark, https://www.sdu.dk/en
| Internet talk | No |
|---|---|
| Is this an abstract from experimental collaboration? | Yes |
| Name of experiment and experimental site | Any Light Particle Search (ALPS) II, DESY, Hamburg, Germany |
| Is the speaker for that presentation defined? | Yes |
