Microwave seminar | 06 September 2021

The identity of the dark matter of the Universe is one of the preeminent scientific questions of our time. The axion is an attractive dark matter candidate, and furthermore is well-motivated as a favorite solution to one of the last unresolved questions in the Standard Model, i.e. the Strong-CP problem. Elegant experiments are being carried to search for the axion and axionic dark matter, based on the Primakoff effect, i.e. the coherent conversion of axions to microwave photons in a magnetic field, and the conversion can be resonantly enhanced in a microwave cavity. The microwave cavity search for dark matter has been a driver of quantum information science; recently the HAYSTAC experiment published the first results ever where a squeezed-vacuum state receiver had been employed to evade the Standard Quantum Limit on noise. The presentation will begin with a general discussion of the dark matter problem, and a motivation for the axion both in particle physics and as a dark matter candidate.

Main paper/arXiv, related to the seminar, and other references

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1602.00039.pdf
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2008.01853.pdf
https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/PT.3.4227