Cryogenic cavity detector for a large-scale cold dark-matter axion search

An axion detector consisting of a tunable high-Q cavity, a superconducting magnet, and a superheterodyne receiver with an ultra-low noise pre-ampli"er has been built to search for galactic halo axions in the mass range of 1.3}13 leV. The detector instrumentation, search process, and data analysis are described. For the "rst time, this class of detector has reached su$cient sensitivity to detect halo axions with high con"dence. ( 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.