Detection of hidden photon dark matter using the direct excitation of transmon qubits

Abstract

We propose a novel dark matter detection method utilizing the excitation of superconducting transmon qubits. Assuming the hidden photon dark matter of a mass of $O(10)\ \mu{\rm eV}$, the classical wave-matter oscillation induces an effective ac electric field via the small kinetic mixing with the ordinary photon. This serves as a coherent drive field for a qubit when it is resonant, evolving it from the ground state towards the first-excited state. We evaluate the rate of such evolution and observable excitations in the measurements, as well as the search sensitivity to the hidden photon dark matter. For a selected mass, one can reach $\epsilon \sim 10^{-12}-10^{-14}$ (where $\epsilon$ is the kinetic mixing parameter of the hidden photon) with a single standard transmon qubit. A simple extension to the frequency-tunable SQUID-based transmon enables the mass scan to cover the whole $4-40\ \mu{\rm eV}$ ($1-10$ GHz) range within a reasonable length of run time. The sensitivity scalability along the number of the qubits also makes it a promising platform in accord to the rapid evolution of the superconducting quantum computer technology.