Erlangen 2026 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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T: Fachverband Teilchenphysik

T 102: Axions/ALPs III

T 102.4: Vortrag

Freitag, 20. März 2026, 09:45–10:00, KH 02.019

MADMAX Open Booster 300 Receiver Chain and Power Calibration — •Alan Aliyali for the MADMAX collaboration — Insitut für Experimentalphysik, Universität Hamburg, Deutschland

Originally proposed to solve the strong CP problem of QCD, the axion is also a prominent candidate for cold dark matter. Using the axion-to-photon conversion inside a magnetic field, the MAgnetized Disk and Mirror Axion eXperiment aims to probe the axion mass range of 40 to 400 µ eV, corresponding to microwaves in the 10 to 100 GHz range. MADMAX makes use of a so-called booster, a series of dielectric disks placed in front of a metallic mirror, to resonantly enhance the expected axion signal over a frequency range adjustable via the spacing of the disks.

The Open Booster 300 is a booster configuration consisting of an aluminum mirror and three sapphire discs, all with a 300 mm diameter. In this configuration, the axion induced current excites gaussian modes that gets measured by a corrugated horn antenna. The resulting signal is amplified and filtered by a low-noise receiver chain, down-converted using heterodyne detection, and digitized by an ADC performing real-time FFTs from which power spectra are recorded.

Accurate measurements of the signal requires precise characterization of the entire receiver chain. In this presentation we show how the receiver chain is calibrated using the Y-factor method to determine the frequency dependent gain and noise temperature.

Keywords: Axion DM; Dielectric Haloscope; Receiver Chain Calibration