Searching for Dark Matter in the Stars

by Mr Jamie McDonald

Friday 30 Apr 2021, 12:30 → 14:00 Europe/London

https://zoom.us/j/304578256

Axions are gaining increasing attention as candidates for dark matter. Recently, much interest has focused on the hunt for radio lines produced by the conversion of axion dark matter in neutron star magnetospheres as a possible smoking gun. Various groups have begun to obtain radio data to search for the signal, however, more work is needed to obtain a robust theory prediction for the precise signal properties. In this talk we briefly review the subject of axion dark matter-photon conversion before going on to present a new and comprehensive prediction for the neutron star signal. For the first time, we describe the detailed shape of the line signal as well as its time dependence which is pulsed over the neutron star rotation period. Our prediction of the features of the signal will be essential for this kind of dark matter search.
 

Connections will begin at 12:30 with the seminar beginning at 13:00. Password for Zoom is NielsBohr.