Postdoctoral Scholar Researcher Position in Dark Matter Searches and Quantum Precision Measurements University

The Aggarwal Group at UC Davis is looking for a postdoc to play a leading role in R&D toward a new tabletop radio-frequency gravitational wave detector, targeting the axion, a leading dark matter candidate. Axions can form clouds around black holes through superradiance, and those clouds emit gravitational waves. The detector concept is a Fabry-Perot Michelson interferometer with an optically trapped micro-disk in each arm cavity.

It is also a promising platform for sub-SQL techniques such as sensing with squeezed light. You will work under the supervision of Prof. Aggarwal and in close collaboration with Prof. Andrew Geraci’s group at Northwestern, which is developing a companion detector, with the goal of running the two jointly. Some travel to Chicago may be needed, depending on the experiment.

This position is supported by a new DOE award for R&D on hybrid quantum sensing schemes using optical levitation and interferometry. The initial appointment is two years, renewable annually subject to mutual satisfaction, and the award covers the full initial appointment.

Interested candidates can spend extended periods at the LIGO observatories to learn commissioning techniques. These techniques are directly useful for the R&D on this project.

We develop instrumentation for precision measurements, with a focus on ultralight dark matter and gravitational wave searches. The group is also involved in ARIADNE, a search for short-range spin-dependent forces mediated by the QCD axion, and in the LIGO collaboration, where we search for dark matter using LIGO instruments and data.

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Candidates must have completed a Ph.D. in Physics or related area(s) prior to beginning employment.