MRI: Track 1 Development of a Novel Radio Telescope Designed to Search for Dark Matter

This award supports the construction and deployment of a 5-m radio telescope that will be used to search for dark matter particles that comprise almost a third of the matter+energy content of the universe. One compelling candidate dark-matter particle is the axion. Axions should have rare but unavoidable feeble interactions with the known particles, the most notable being the axion-photon coupling. This allows axions to convert into photons in the presence of a strong magnetic field. Common ambient magnetic fields are not strong enough to trigger this conversion, but neutron stars have the largest magnetic fields in the universe (up to the level of 10 billion Tesla). Neutron stars are therefore an ideal laboratory for axion discovery searches. In addition to scientific discovery made possible by telescope observations of neutron star populations in the Milky Way, this project will enable three primary areas of educational activity: (i) student involvement in telescope construction and instrumentation research, (ii) student astrophysics research projects, like axion studies, and (iii) new courses that teach students how to use radio telescopes. Detecting the axion-photon conversion signal in the magnetospheres of neutron stars is ideally made with a radio telescope equipped with a backend spectrometer because the signal is a narrow emission line. The energy of the photon generated is given by the axion mass, and the photon production rate (in watts or photons/sec) is proportional to the square of the magnetic field. The instrument to be built is based on a novel broadband (6 to 20 GHz) high-resolution (100 kHz) microwave spectrometer that uses the Xilinx UltraScale+ RFSoC ZCU208. The telescope will be sited at the University of Virginia's Fan Mountain Observatory, which is inside United States National Radio Quiet Zone. Identifying the dark matter particle is one of the main goals of astrophysical research; its discovery would have a profound impact on all of particle physics, astrophysics, and astronomy. The educational component of this program will train future experimentalists. In this context, this award will produce three refereed journal publications, three conference talks, and two Ph.D. theses. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.