Thermal activated detection of dark particles in a weakly coupled quantum Ising ladder

The Isingₕ² integrable field theory, which emerges when two quantum critical Ising chains are weakly coupled, possesses eight types of relativistic particles whose mass spectrum and scattering matrices are organized by the D₈⁽¹⁾ algebra. It is predicted that all odd-parity particles are dark and cannot be directly excited from the ground state. This makes these dark particles hard to be detected. Here, we study the local dynamical spin structure factor of the model at low-frequencies and low-temperatures. In contrast to the invisibility of the dark particles in THz spectroscopy or inelastic neutron scattering measurement, we find that the lightest dark particle is detectable, manifested as a thermal activation gap in nuclear magnetic resonance measurements. Our results provide a practical criterion for verifying the existence of dark particles.