Computational simulations of the Axion Longitudinal Plasma HAloscope

Sammanfattning: The quantum chromodynamics axion is a very light hypothetical particle that may simultaneously solve the dark matter and the strong CP problem. Recently, a new type of haloscope that can detect the resonant conversion of axions to photons was suggested, The Axion Longitudinal Plasma HAloscope (ALPHA). Through the use of wire material, the detector can scan a range of axion masses in the microwave regime. For the development of ALPHA, further studies of its components are needed. In this thesis, we investigate defects in the wire material using the finite-difference time-domain method. We simulate a metallic waveguide filled with metallic wires and show how various positioning errors of the wires affect the transverse magnetic mode.