Abstract: Can the spin of light dark matter reveal itself on macroscopic/astrophysical scales? I will first show that the non-relativistic limit, bosonic spin-s dark fields are described by a 2s+1 component Schrodinger-Poisson (SP) system. This can be very useful in numerically simulating structure formation in higher-spin dark matter. I will then show that in this multi-component SP system, there exist solitons with … Read More
Title: Hunting for axions in the solar basin Abstract: Stars can produce large fluxes of new BSM particles. While most of this energy is radiated away to infinity, some fraction can become gravitationally trapped by the star, forming a “stellar basin.” After a brief review of stellar basins, I will present ongoing work using the NuSTAR telescope to hunt for … Read More
Abstract: A generic low-energy prediction of string theory is the existence of a large collection of axions, commonly known as a string axiverse. In a realistic axiverse, string axions can be distributed densely over many orders of magnitude in mass, and are expected to interact with one another through their joint potential. In this talk, I will show how non-linearities … Read More
In this talk, I will discuss the vector-portal dark matter model, with a dark photon that is slightly heavier than the dark matter. In this regime, a sub-GeV dark matter particle leads naturally to the correct relic abundance, with freezeout controlled by forbidden and 3-to-2 processes. The thermal freezeout behavior of dark matter can be classified into several different phases … Read More
Abstract: In this talk, I will propose the use of the Earth as a transducer for ultralight dark-matter detection. In particular I will point out a novel signal of kinetically mixed dark-photon dark matter: a monochromatic oscillating magnetic field generated at the surface of the Earth. Similar to the signal in a laboratory experiment in a shielded box (or cavity), … Read More
Abstract: The parameter εK is an important measure of the imbalance between matter and antimatter in the neutral kaon system. In particular, εK provides a sensitive probe of new physics and plays a critical role in the global fit of the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix. As one of the first discovered sources of CP violation, it has been extensively measured in experiment to per-mil precision. The theoretical calculation … Read More
We establish a paradigm where the (QCD) axion’s novel cosmological evolution, a rotation in the field space, gives rise to the baryon asymmetry by axiogenesis and dark matter by the kinetic misalignment mechanism. The axion rotations also provide a natural origin for a kination era, where the total energy density is dominated by the kinetic term of the axion field, … Read More
Abstract: We look for and place observational constraints on the imprint of ultralight dark matter (ULDM) soliton cores in rotation-dominated galaxies. Extending previous analyses, we find a conservative, model-independent constraint which disfavours the soliton-host halo relation found in numerical simulations over a broad range in the ULDM particle mass m. Combining the observational constraints with theoretical arguments for the efficiency … Read More