The Haloscope at Yale Sensitive To Axion Cold Dark Matter (HAYSTAC) is a leading experiment searching for QCD axion dark matter using resonant microwave cavities in strong magnetic fields. HAYSTAC pioneered the use of squeezed-state receivers to evade the standard quantum limit and has probed the highest axion masses reached by cavity haloscopes to date.

I play a lead role in HAYSTAC operations and upgrades, with responsibility for receiver performance, experiment stability, and analysis readiness. In recent runs, I identified and resolved a dominant sensitivity limitation arising from vibration-induced cavity frequency jitter, tracing it to cryogenic circulation pump vibrations and implementing an effective mitigation strategy using active squeezing-phase feedback. This work restored stable sub-quantum-limited operation and established a robust operating paradigm for future high-frequency haloscopes.

My current efforts focus on extending HAYSTAC to higher axion masses through new cavity designs and advanced readout architectures, including entanglement-based receiver concepts that promise further improvements in scan rate and sensitivity.