Working Group Meeting of COST Action COSMIC WISPers (CA21106)

13 Feb 2025, 08:30 → 14 Feb 2025, 18:00 Europe/Zurich

01.403-01.404 (Kirchhoff Institute for Physics)

Alexander Stoll (Kirchhoff-Institute for Physics, Heidelberg University), Loredana Gastaldo (Kirchhoff Institute for Physics, Heidelberg University)

Axions and other very weakly interacting slim (m << GeV) particles (WISPs) are easily accommodated in several  extensions of the Standard Model of Particle Physics. Searches for WISPs are strongly motivated by our attempts  to understand the nature of the dark matter and puzzling astrophysical and particle physics observations.

The Working Group Meeting will shape the activities of the COST Action "COSMIC WISPers in the Dark Universe: Theory, astrophysics, experiments" (CA21106). The objective of the meeting is to promote a discussion among the different communities involved in the project,  with the immediate aim of reviewing the present experimental and theoretical status of WISP searches and plan further directions of investigation. Highlights related to the different Working Groups will be presentes as well as status report of each Working Group.

Thursday 13 February

08:30 → 09:20 Registration

Conveners: Alessandro Mirizzi, Dr Loredana Gastaldo (Kirchhoff Institute for Physics, Heidelberg University)

09:20 → 09:30 Welcome

09:30 → 11:00 Talks: WG1

09:30 ?

Speaker: Prof. MARTIN BAUER (IPPP Durham)

10:15 Testing the far UV with an axion coupled to photons

After a brief introduction to axions in string theory, discussing their quality and the origin of their couplings, I will review recent progress in understanding their properties in different string theories from type IIB to heterotic string theories. I will show how the discovery of a light ALP — that is, above the QCD line — is incompatible with unification and heterotic string theory. Finally I will discuss our limitations and the questions that remain open.

Speaker: Mario Reig Lopez (University of Oxford)

11:00 → 11:30 Coffee Break

11:30 → 13:00 Talks: WG2

11:30 Axion Strings

Ref: https://inspirehep.net/literature/2842154

Speaker: Prof. Mark Hindmarsh (University of Helsinki, University of Sussex)

12:15 General WISP

Ref: https://inspirehep.net/literature/2176766

Speaker: Dr Ville Vaskonen

13:00 → 14:30 Coffee Break: Lunch

14:30 → 16:00 Talks: WG3

14:30 Astrophysical signatures of accreting axion stars

Speaker: Guenter Sigl

15:15 ?

Speaker: Alessandro Lella

16:00 → 16:30 Coffee Break

16:30 → 18:00 Talks: WG4

16:30 NA62: new results

Speaker: Babette Dobrich (Max Planck Society (DE))

17:15 GravNet - A global network for the search of high frequency gravitational waves

Speaker: Claudio Gatti (INFN e Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati (IT))

19:00 → 21:00 Dinner

Friday 14 February

09:30 → 11:00 Highlights from CA 21106 Community

11:00 → 11:30 Coffee Break

11:30 → 13:00 WG Reports

11:30 WG 1 Report

11:45 WG 2 Report

12:00 WG 3 Report

12:15 WG 4 Report

12:30 WG 5 Report

13:00 → 14:30 Coffee Break: Lunch

14:30 → 16:00 Round table and closing