Talk Title: Axion Dark Matter Searches from Radio to Infrared
Abstract: Axions are excellent candidates for dark matter (DM) and would also explain why the neutron’s electric dipole moment is vanishingly small. Under an external magnetic field axions in our own galaxy can convert to photons which can be enhanced in a resonator cavity. We first present our world-leading ADMX (Axion Dark Matter eXperiment) which has excluded QCD axion DM for about an octave in mass range around 4µeV (1GHz) and is poised to search up to 16µeV (4GHz). Yet, about 6 orders of magnitude of higher masses, up to eV (infrared), remain unprobed. At these masses resonant cavities become infeasible. Hence, we discuss our R&D on novel resonator technology for this range, including MADMAX (Magnetized Disk and Mirror eXperiment) and BREAD (Broadband Experiment for Axion Detection). We highlight our recent, first physics results. We also discuss future plans, pushing the boundaries of these new technologies into the “THz gap”, while leveraging cutting-edge quantum sensing developments and forging international, cross-disciplinary collaborations to achieve a large-scale experimental program for axion discovery.
Host: Mike Jewell