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Speaker |
Flambaum, Victor |
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Coauthors |
Stadnik, Yevgeny |
| Talk Title |
Searching for dark matter and variation of fundamental constants with gravitational wave interferometers |
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Abstract |
Any slight variations in the fundamental constants of Nature, which may be induced by dark matter or some yet-to-be-discovered cosmic field, would characteristically alter the phase of a light beam inside a gravitational wave interferometer (such as LIGO, Virgo, GEO600, TAMA300 or a smaller-scale interferometer), which can be measured extremely precisely. Laser/maser interferometry may be applied to searches for the linear-in-time drift of the fundamental constants, detection of topological defect dark matter through transient-in-time effects and for a relic, coherently oscillating condensate, which consists of scalar dark matter fields, through oscillating effects. Our proposed experiments require either minor or no modifications of existing apparatus, and offer extensive reach into important and unconstrained spaces of physical parameters, as well as the possibility of independently corroborating astronomical observations of quasar absorption spectra, which hint at the existence of a spatial gradient in the value of the fine-structure constant. Our proposed experiments can also probe our new recently proposed model of cosmological evolution of the fundamental constants of Nature, in which both ‘slow’ and oscillating variations of the fundamental constants can be produced by scalar and pseudoscalar (axion) dark matter. References: [1] Y. V. Stadnik and V. V. Flambaum. Phys. Rev. Lett. 114, 161301 (2015). [2] Y. V. Stadnik, V. V. Flambaum, S. Klimenko, and G. Mitselmakher. To be published. [3] J. K. Webb, J. A. King, M. T. Murphy, V. V. Flambaum, R. F. Carswell, and M. B. Bainbridge. Phys. Rev. Lett. 107, 191101 (2011). [4] J. A. King, J. K. Webb, M. T. Murphy, V. V. Flambaum, R. F. Carswell, M. B. Bainbridge, M. R. Wilczynska and F. E. Koch. MNRAS 422, 3370 (2012). [5] Y. V. Stadnik and V. V. Flambaum. arXiv:1503.08540. [6] Y. V. Stadnik and V. V. Flambaum. arXiv:1504.01798. |
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