Title: Galactic Dark-matter Axion Search using Quantum Coherence Amplification Mechanism

Speaker: Prof. Noboru Sasao (Okayama University)

Time: 10:00 AM, Jun. 11th (Tuesday), 2019

Place: R319, Theoretical Physics Division

Abstract:

Dark-matter, which constitutes about a quarter of the total energy of the current universe, remains one of the most important unsolved problems in contemporary physics. Axion was postulated to solve the strong CP (Charge-conjugation Parity) violation problem in the standard particle theory. In particular, light mass axion has various nice features as dark-matter. Being one of the best candidate particle of dark-matter, it is thus actively pursued experimentally in the word.

A new experimental method is proposed to detect and determine galactic dark-matter axion and its properties. The method utilizes an amplification mechanism based on quantum coherence among target molecules to enhance otherwise very small rate. In this talk, I first explain this amplification mechanism and its experimental proof, and then detail the axion search experiment. Although the method uses the same basic idea presented in the reference below, the present one differs substantially from it to enhance experimental feasibility.

Reference: Eur. Phys. J. C (2018) 78:949, https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-018-6412-x

Speaker Introduction:

Noboru Sasao, is a professor of the Research Institute for Interdisciplinary Science, Okayama University, Japan. He received a Ph.D degree from Yale University in 1976 on “Deep Inelastic Scattering of Polarized Electrons by Polarized Protons”. Since 1978, in which he obtained a position at Kyoto University, Japan, he had been mainly involved in accelerator-based high-energy particle physic experiments. Those include rare kaon decay experiments at KEK, a parity violation experiment at SLAC, TRISTAN electron-positron collider experiments, an axion search experiment at KEK, etc. He moved to Okayama University in 2009 to promote an interdisciplinary project which combines atomic physics with fundamental physics. His main interests at present are “neutrino mass spectroscopy with atoms”, “dark-matter axion search experiment using quantum coherence amplification principle”, and “determination of Thorium 229 isomer energy towards realization of nuclear clocks”.

http://tpd.ihep.cas.cn/xshd/xsbg/201905/t20190530_492572.html