The Search for Axion Dark Matter

Dark matter is the dominant source of matter in our Universe.  However, while dark matter dictates the evolution of large-scale astrophysical systems through its gravitational effects, the particle nature of dark matter is unknown.  This is despite the significant effort that has gone into the search for particle dark matter over the past decades.  In this talk I will review the current status of the search for particle dark matter.  I will focus specifically on a dark matter particle candidate called the axion, which is both well-motivated theoretically and also relatively unexplored experimentally.  I will outline the near-term program for searching for axion dark matter and show that if this theory is correct, then we will probably know soon.

Speaker: Ben Safdi, Univ. of Michigan