Conveners
Interferometry
- Anna Soter (ETH Zürich)
Description
Atom interferometry is emerging as a very powerful tool for fundamental physics.
The recent current best determinations of the fine structure were realized using Rb and Cs atoms interferometer. Planned experiments will reach enough sensitivity to Search for Ultra-Light Dark Matter exploring a new parameter space complementing other searches,
test General Relativity on the Earth surface and detect gravity waves in the mid-frequency band. Swiss researchers are leading experiments to probe the effect of gravity on anti-matter by using matter interferometers and searching for short range forces with this technique.
Using an atom interferometer, it is possible to precisely measure the ratio between the Planck constant and the mass of an atom. This measurement allows improving the determination of the fine structure constant α. By using this value in the QED prediction of the magnetic moment of the electron, it is possible to precisely test the Standard Model. This test is particularly relevant as it is...
The Standard Model of particle physics perfectly describes most of the observed phenomena, but leaves a number of problems unresolved, including the origin of the matter-antimatter asymmetry, the nature of dark matter, the absence of observed CP violation in the strong sector, the fine tuning needed for light Higgs. Most extensions of the Standard Model involve the introduction of new...
In this talk, I present a novel approach based on precision laser interferometry that combines the search for axion-like particles and low-mass scalar-field dark matter with the investigation of quantum space-time fluctuations. For the dark matter search, our method employs polarimetry with a Fabry-Perot cavity in combination with high birefringence crystals to achieve unprecedented...
In this talk, I will introduce AION, a multi-stage atom interferometer project that aims to detect ultra-light dark matter candidates. The first stage, AION-10, will stand 10m tall in a stairwell in the Physics Department in the University of Oxford. AION-10 will operate in a gradiometer configuration, which means that two identical atom interferometers are run simultaneously, launching from...
