Early Career Scientist Seminar: Barkotel Zemenu, Stanford, "High-Frequency Axion Searches with ADMX-VERA"

Tuesday Sep 1, 2026, 1:00 PM → 2:00 PM US/Eastern

216 (WL)

The seminar recording is available on the internal website.

Abstract: As the search for dark matter axions moves to higher frequencies, traditional cavity-based detectors must shrink in size, severely reducing the signal power collected from axion-converted photons. While combining multiple cavities can compensate for this loss, scaling such systems introduces significant complexity. To bypass these limitations, the ADMX-VERA (Volume Enhanced Resonators for Axions) collaboration explores alternative geometries that maintain large effective volumes at high frequencies by leveraging modes dependent on only a single dimension. In this talk, I will introduce the "thin-shell" concept motivating this R&D program, present prototype results validating the design, and address a critical challenge associated with coupling to these spatially distributed modes. I will conclude by discussing how we overcome this readout challenge by adapting a technique ubiquitous in cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiments but novel to axion haloscopes.