Speaker
Description
The mystery of dark matter (DM) is a long-standing issue in physics, with numerous dedicated experiments returning no confirmed detections. Many direct detection experiments search for high mass particles, but ultralight DM is a lesser-researched, well-motivated model that could be detected through its effects on fundamental constants.
Atomic clocks are a viable option for detection as atomic transition frequencies can be heavily affected by changes to the fine structure constant and electron. Changes to these constants also affect the lengths of solid bodies, making ultrastable optical cavities another good detection option. Furthermore, if we look at quadratically coupled ultralight DM, we get additional signals to search for. This type of DM would be screened by regular matter, which could explain the lack of detection from ground-based searches. For both cases, we search for signals in separated optical cavities and atomic clocks
In this work, I will discuss our recent and upcoming works on ultralight DM detection, including the results of our analysis and implications for future research.