Observations of the cosmos suggest that the matter we see—planets, stars, and galaxies—must be dwarfed by another form of matter that exerts gravity but is invisible to us.  What this “dark matter” is remains one of the largest open questions in physics and astronomy. The Foundation-supported HAYSTAC project— a collaboration of grantee partners Yale, UC Berkeley, and the University of Colorado— is searching for one possible candidate, a theoretical particle called the axion.

The HAYSTAC team has found a clever way to accelerate this search by leveraging the strange world of quantum mechanics.  You can learn more by checking out the following sites:

• A Quantum Enhanced Search for Dark Matter Axions
  Nature
• Researchers harness quantum weirdness to speed the search for dark matter
  Berkeley News
• Looking for dark matter in a HAYSTAC — with some quantum squeezing
  Yale News