PIs

Lecturer / ARC DECRA Fellow, University of Sydney 🔗
Status: unreviewed revisit date: None Application status: none LOR status: not_needed
Department(s)/lab(s): School of Physics | Sydney Astroparticle and Dark Matter Group @ USyd
Summary:

O'Hare is a dark-matter phenomenologist whose work sits unusually close to instrumentation: he is the principal theorist of the 'neutrino fog' that limits direct-detection experiments, of directional dark matter detection (using the daily modulation of the WIMP wind to distinguish signal from background), and of the axion and ultralight dark-matter searches that increasingly rely on quantum sensors — haloscopes, comagnetometers, NMR-based searches and atomic magnetometers. He writes the sensitivity projections that tell experimentalists which quantum sensor to build. Positioned against the established body of NV-ensemble quantum sensing work — DEER, nanoscale NMR and T1 relaxometry protocols operating at pT/sqrt(Hz) field sensitivity — the axion/ALP search programme he works on consumes spin-ensemble magnetometry directly: CASPEr-class experiments are, in effect, precision NMR magnetometers operating far below pT/sqrt(Hz), and his phenomenology sets the sensitivity targets they aim at. Theory PI with strong experimental engagement.

Created at: July 12, 2026, 1:03 a.m. Updated at: July 12, 2026, 1:03 a.m. Metadata: Fresh 2026-07-11. Primary lab: Sydney astroparticle group, School of Physics. Theory/phenomenology, early-career (DECRA), heavily engaged with quantum-sensor-based dark matter experiments.