NMR Search for the Dark-Matter Wind

• Applicant: Professor Dmitry Budker, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Nuclear and Elementary Particle Physics, Quantum Mechanics, Relativity, Fields
• Term: from 2015 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 278413308

The goal of this project is to pioneer an experimental framework that enables broad systematic searches for light particles, including the elusive axion particle, one of the theoretically best-motivated candidates for dark matter.The nature of dark matter is one of the central open problems in modern physics. A discovery elucidating the particle nature of dark matter would open up new vistas for a wide range of areas, from particle physics to astrophysics and cosmology, and would provide unique insights into the physics beyond the Standard Model. Among the candidates proposed for dark matter, two distinctly different particles stand out as they arise from comprehensive theoretical frameworks, but neither has been observed experimentally. One is a heavy particle known as weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP). Null results from a variety of experiments constrain its mass and coupling. The other is the axion, a light scalar particle. So far, just one experiment probes axion dark matter, and only over a fraction of the allowed masses.Here, we propose a new direction in the experimental search for axion and axion-like paticles (ALPs). We will use nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) techniques for detecting spin precession caused by the coupling of spatial fluctuations in light-particle fields to the spin of nuclei. This approach covers large parts of the parameter space of axions and ALPs, many orders of magnitude beyond current constraints, thus establishing a highly sensitive search for a broad class of dark-matter candidates and for generic light particles.

• DFG Programme: Reinhart Koselleck Projects