Resonant Cavity Searches for Hidden Sector Particles

Supervisors

John Hartnett	www.uwa.edu.au/people/john.hartnett 
Mike Tobar		www.uwa.edu.au/people/michael.tobar 

Many extensions to the standard model of particle physics contain an extra U(1) gauge factor corresponding to a hidden sector of particles. The only interaction between this hidden sector and normal matter is a weak kinetic mixing between the photon and hidden sector photon. This allows for oscillations to occur between the two particles.
The hidden sector photon is most likely very light and belongs to a class of hypothetical particles known as WISPs.
Recently a new method for detecting hidden sector photons using microwave cavities was proposed [1] and in 2009 we performed the first prototype experiment [2] at room temperature with empty copper resonant cavities. We are now building a cryogenic experiment with two very high quality factor superconducting cavities where we plan to put new limits on the mixing parameter.

[1] J. Jaeckel and A. Ringwald, Phys. Lett. B 659, 509 (2008).
[2] R.G. Povey, J.G. Hartnett, M.E. Tobar, Phys. Rev. D 82, 052003 (2010)