Il giorno 7 Dicembre 2018, alle ore 11:00, in Aula 2N44 del Dipartimento di Fisica "E. Pancini"

il Prof. J. Tito Mendonca, IPFN, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisbon, Portugal,

terrà il seguente seminario, organizzati dalla Sezione INFN di Napoli:

"Axions: Search for Dark Matter using Ultra-Intense Lasers"

Abstract

Dark matter is a key ingredient to physical cosmology and one of the mysteries of modern science. Among a variety of possible candidates (generically referred as WIMPs and WISPs), axions are the most promising constituents of dark matter. These hypothetical particles have been proposed to solve fundamental problems of chargeparity (CP) invariance. The proof of their existence has been actively searched for more than one decade, without success, using both laboratory experiments and astrophysical observations.

In recent years, it became clear that, if they exist, the axions could be actively produced by intense laser pulses in vacuum [1,2]. Alternatively, the signature of axions could be found in the dispersion relation of electrostatic waves in strongly magnetized plasmas, due to the formation of polariton states [3].

This leads to a local distortion of the dispersion properties of electron plasma waves, in a spectral region where the phase velocity approaches the speed of light c. In our presentation, we consider the excitation of axions by intense laser pulses, propagating in both vacuum and plasmas. A discussion of possible new experimental configurations, based on intense laser pulses, and using the available technology is also included.

[1] J.T. Mendonça, Europhys. Lett. 79, 21001 (2007);

[2] B. Döbrich and H. Gies, J. High Energy Phys. 10, 022 (2010).

[3] H. Terças, J.D. Rodrigues and J.T. Mendonça, Phys. Rev. Lett. 120, 181803 (2018).

Il proponenete

Prof. Renato Fedele