Abstract: Axion dark matter which couples to fermions can act as an effective magnetic field, the “axion wind”, inducing spin precession in condensed matter systems. I will describe a new proposal for axion wind detection using an unusual phase of superfluid helium-3, the homogeneous precession domain (HPD). In the HPD, spins precess coherently over a macroscopic volume even in the presence of a spatially-varying B-field. This detection mechanism offers several advantages compared to existing proposals such as CASPEr: broadband detection of many axion masses at once, a signal that appears as a frequency shift instead of a small amplitude, and the absence of traditional sources of spin noise. I will provide an introduction to both the axion wind and the HPD, so condensed matter students would be most welcome at this talk alongside particle physics students!
https://berkeley.zoom.us/j/7559660898