5–9 Dec 2022
Australia/Sydney timezone

Searching for scalar field dark matter with hyperfine transitions in alkali atoms

5 Dec 2022, 15:20
20m
229 (Old Main Building)

229

Old Main Building

Speaker

Andrew Mansour

Description

Fundamental constants such as masses and coupling constants of elementary particles can have small temporal and spatial variations in the scalar field dark matter model. These variations entail time oscillations of other constants, such as the Bohr and nuclear magnetons, Bohr radius and the hyperfine structure constant. In the presence of an external magnetic field, these oscillations induce hyperfine transitions in atoms and molecules. We determine the probability of magnetic dipole hyperfine transitions, caused by the oscillating fundamental constants, and propose an experiment that could detect the scalar field dark matter through this effect. This experiment may be sensitive to the scalar field dark matter with mass in the range $1 \ \mu \text{eV} < m_{\phi} < 100 \mu \text{eV}$

Authors

Victor Flambaum (University of New South Wales) Andrew Mansour Igor Samsonov (UNSW) Prof. Christof Weitenberg (Institut f ̈ur Laserphysik, Universit ̈at Hamburg, 22761 Hamburg, Germany and The Hamburg Centre for Ultrafast Imaging, 22761 Hamburg, Germany)

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