Hunting for Axions and Hidden Photons in the Wilderness: The Search for Non-Interacting Particles Experimental Hunt (SNIPE Hunt)

The Earth-ionosphere environment can act as a transducer that transforms ultralight bosonic dark matter (axions and hidden photons) into an oscillating magnetic field with a specific pattern across the Earth's surface. We present results of the Search for Non-Interacting Particles Experimental Hunt (SNIPE Hunt), which attempts to detect such dark matter-induced magnetic field patternorres by making clated measurements using a network of magnetometers placed in relatively quiet magnetic environments (remote areas far from human-generated magnetic interference). Our experiment limits the parameter space describing hidden-photon and axion dark matter with Compton frequencies in the 0.5–5.0 Hz range. The next generation of the SNIPE Hunt targets higher frequencies (in the 5 Hz to 1 kHz range) and employs induction-coil magnetometers. In order to clearly interpret the data in terms of dark matter-induced signals without detailed modeling of complicated features of the Earth's ionosphere, we plan to measure the curl of the magnetic field at each site.