Development of Superfluid Helium-3 Bolometry Using Nanowire Resonators with SQUID Readout for the QUEST-DMC Experiment

Leason, E. and Levitin, L. V. and Autti, S. and Bloomfield, E. and Casey, A. and Darvishi, N. and Eng, N. and Franchini, P. and Haley, R. P. and Heikkinen, P. J. and Jennings, A. and Kemp, A. and March-Russell, J. and Mayer, A. and Monroe, J. and Muenstermann, D. and Noble, M. T. and Prance, J. R. and Rojas, X. and Salmon, T. and Saunders, J. and Smirnov, J. and Smith, R. and Thompson, M. D. and Thomson, A. and Ting, A. and Tsepelin, V. and West, S. M. and Whitehead, L. and Zmeev, D. E. (2026) Development of Superfluid Helium-3 Bolometry Using Nanowire Resonators with SQUID Readout for the QUEST-DMC Experiment. Journal of Low Temperature Physics, 222 (2): 39. ISSN 0022-2291

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Abstract

Superfluid helium-3 bolometers can be utilised for dark matter direct detection searches. The extremely low heat capacity of the B phase of the superfluid helium-3 at ultra-low temperatures offers the potential to reach world leading sensitivity to spin-dependent interactions of dark matter in the sub-GeV/c2 mass range. Here, we describe the development of bolometry using both micron scale and sub-micron diameter vibrating wire resonators, with a SQUID amplifier-based readout scheme. Characterisation of the resonators and bolometer measurements are shown, including the use of nonlinear operation and the corresponding corrections. The bolometer contains two vibrating wire resonators, enabling heat injection calibration and simultaneous bolometer tracking measurements. Coincident events measured on both vibrating wire resonators verify their response. We also demonstrate proof of concept frequency multiplexed readout. Development of these measurement techniques lays the foundations for the use of superfluid helium-3 bolometers, instrumented with vibrating nanomechanical resonators, for future low-threshold dark matter searches.