Institute for Nuclear and Particle Astrophysics (INPA) at LBNL

The INPA Seminar weekly talks are on Fridays, starting at 12:00 pm, unless informed otherwise. The seminar talk starts with a brief presentation of the weekly scientific news. Typically, the talks conclude by 1:00 pm. The seminars are held in the Sessler Conference Room,  located in Bldg. 50A- 5132.

The committee members are:

The seminar schedule for the Institute for Nuclear and Particle Astrophysics (INPA) is tentative and becomes final a few days before the Friday talk.

Please send all suggestions for future INPA talks and speakers to the INPA Committee.

To be added to the INPA News Mailing List, please contact Erica Hall.

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Jon Ouellet (MIT) – ABRACADABRA: A New Approach to the Search for Axion Dark Matter

May 19, 2017 @ 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm

The evidence for the existence of Dark Matter is well supported by
many cosmological observations. But we have not yet been able to
determine how this new type of matter fits into our understanding of
the Universe on the smallest scales. Separately, long standing
problems within the Standard Model point to new weakly interacting
particles to help explain away unnatural fine-tunings. The axion was
originally proposed to explain the Strong-CP problem, but was
subsequently shown to be a strong candidate for explaining the Dark
Matter abundance of the Universe. ABRACADABRA is a proposed
experiment to search for ultralight axion Dark Matter, with a focus on
the mass range $10^{-14} \lesssim m_a \lesssim 10^{-6}$\,eV. We search
for these axions and other axion like particles (ALPs) through a
modification to Maxwell’s equations, which cause strong magnetic
fields to source weak oscillating electrical currents parallel to the
field. These weak currents can be detected through the magnetic fields
that they generate. To see these, ABRACADABRA will use highly
sensitive SQUID magnetometers in a very low noise environment. At
MIT, we are building a 10\,cm scale prototype that will quickly be
sensitive to untested regions of parameter space. In the long term, we
hope to scale ABRACADABRA to a 1\,m$^3$ scale detector, which could be
sensitive enough to probe the QCD axion scale.

Details

Date:
May 19, 2017
Time:
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm

INPA guests from campus can now come to the lab early on Fridays. The INPA Common Room (50-5026) is reserved for our guests from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon and from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Note that the seminars are now held in 50A-5132 to accommodate a more significant number of attendees.

CPTea Series (also known as INPA Tea Series)

The Physics Division CPTea Series invites you to an In-Person Tea Series 1st Friday of every month at 3:30 pm INPA Conference Room 50-5026.

Everyone is welcome to attend the open forum. Tea and light refreshments will be served.

CPTea_colorV4.jpg

INPA Common Room (50-5026)
Fridays
3:30 pm

Access to the Lab

For a shuttle pass, please email Erica Hall. The pass is only valid for the day of the seminar.

Erica Hall