The most pressing questions in fundamental particle physics today include the dark matter puzzle, the origin of nonzero neutrino masses, and understanding how the expansion rate of the universe accelerated very early on (inflation) and in the very recent past (dark energy).
The proposed COFI workshop will address the instrumentation challenges faced by next-generation experiments for the detection of dark matter, the CMB, and the CnB. Experiments in these fields routinely push the boundaries of low-energy, low-noise, high-precision instrumentation, but each of these fields is also now at a point where more is needed than incremental improvements of existing technology. The aim of the workshop is to foster cross pollination between these fields, catalyzing the instrumentation breakthroughs needed to move forward in each. By bringing together the experts who understand in detail the state-of-the-art and the key challenges facing these fields, along with the pioneers whose R&D may be the key to surmounting these challenges, we hope to emerge with a new picture of how precision low-energy instrumentation can meet the needs of future experiments.
