Session Y6 - Cosmology, Particle Astrophysics and Gravitational Wave Astronomy.
ORAL session, Tuesday afternoon, April 23
Aztec, Albuquerque Convention Center
The axion is a well motivated particle whose discovery would explain the apparent absence of CP violation in the strong sector. It's abundant production in the early universe also makes the axion a compelling cold dark matter candidate. The axion's couplings to matter are thought to be extremely small, however, its conversion into two photons can be stimulated with the help of a resonant cavity and a strong magnetic field. We report on the status of our ongoing cold dark matter axion search and discuss both short- and long-term strategies. The latter includes development of extremely low noise RF SQUID amplifiers, which will enable us to scan the allowed mass range much more expeditiously.