Superconducting Qubits as Quantum Targets for Direct Particle Scattering
Abstract
We introduce a novel approach to particle detection in which a superconducting qubit itself serves as the scattering target and a resolved transition between circuit eigenstates constitutes the observable final state. The scattering amplitude factorizes into the incident-particle current and a finite-momentum electromagnetic transition response of the qubit. This momentum dependence is essential in that the energy transfer is fixed by the microwave-scale level spacing, whereas a nonrelativistic incident particle can transfer a spatial momentum parametrically larger than that energy and thereby resolve the device geometry. For charge-dominated processes, we recast the response as an induced-offset-charge kernel obtained from an auxiliary electrostatic weighting potential, providing a practical route from circuit geometry to a differential scattering cross section. We illustrate the framework with an Xmon-style transmon and photon-mediated scattering of dark matter. The exceptionally small qubit transition threshold opens sensitivity to an eV-to-keV mass regime that is largely unexplored by existing direct-detection experiments.
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BibTeX
@misc{kim2026superconducting,
title = {{Superconducting Qubits as Quantum Targets for Direct Particle Scattering}},
author = {Doojin Kim and Kyoungchul Kong and Myeonghun Park},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2611.05469},
eprint = {2611.05469},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2611.05469},
note = {CC0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Superconducting Qubits as Quantum Targets for Direct Particle Scattering
AU - Doojin Kim
AU - Kyoungchul Kong
AU - Myeonghun Park
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/11/03
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2611.05469
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2611.05469
AB - We introduce a novel approach to particle detection in which a superconducting qubit itself serves as the scattering target and a resolved transition between circuit eigenstates constitutes the observable final state. The scattering amplitude factorizes into the incident-particle current and a finite-momentum electromagnetic transition response of the qubit. This momentum dependence is essential in that the energy transfer is fixed by the microwave-scale level spacing, whereas a nonrelativistic incident particle can transfer a spatial momentum parametrically larger than that energy and thereby resolve the device geometry. For charge-dominated processes, we recast the response as an induced-offset-charge kernel obtained from an auxiliary electrostatic weighting potential, providing a practical route from circuit geometry to a differential scattering cross section. We illustrate the framework with an Xmon-style transmon and photon-mediated scattering of dark matter. The exceptionally small qubit transition threshold opens sensitivity to an eV-to-keV mass regime that is largely unexplored by existing direct-detection experiments.
ER -