Entanglement-enhanced optomechanical sensor array for dark matter searches

Abstract

The nature of dark matter is one of the most important open questions in modern physics. The search for dark matter is challenging since, besides gravitational interaction, it feebly interacts with ordinary matter. Mechanical sensors are one of the leading candidates for dark matter searches in the low frequency region. Here, we propose entanglement-enhanced optomechanical sensing systems to assist the search for DM with mechanical sensing devices. To assess the performance of our setup, we adopt the integrated sensitivity, which is particularly suitable for broadband sensing as it precisely quantifies the bandwidth-sensitivity tradeoff of the system. We then show that, by coherently operating the optomechanical sensor array and utilizing continuous-variable multi-partite entanglement between the optical fields, the array of sensors has a scaling advantage over independent sensors (i.e., $\sqrt{M}\rightarrow M$, where $M$ is the number of sensors) as well as a performance boost due to entanglement. Such an advantage is robust to imhomogeneities of the mechanical sensors and is achievable with off-the-shelf experimental components.