7–11 Aug 2017
Columbus, Ohio, USA
US/Eastern timezone

ABRACADABRA: A novel approach to detecting axion dark matter

10 Aug 2017, 16:00
15m
Small Theater (The Athenaeum)

Small Theater

The Athenaeum

Oral Dark matter (direct detection, indirect detection, theory, etc.) Dark matter

Speaker

Benjamin Safdi (massachusetts institute of technology)

Description

ABRACADABRA is a proposed experiment to search for ultralight (10^-14 - 10^-6 eV) axion dark matter. When ultralight axion dark matter encounters a static magnetic field, it sources an effective electric current that follows the magnetic field lines and oscillates at the axion Compton frequency. In the presence of axion dark matter, a large toroidal magnet will act like an oscillating current ring, whose induced magnetic flux can be measured by an external pickup loop inductively coupled to a SQUID magnetometer. The readout circuit can be broadband or resonant and both are considered. ABRACADABRA is fielding a 10-cm prototype in 2017 with the intention of scaling to a 1m^3 experiment. The long term goal is to probe QCD axions near the GUT-scale. In this talk I will review the design, sources of noise, and sensitivity of the experiment.

Primary author

Benjamin Safdi (massachusetts institute of technology)

Presentation materials