Related papers: Light particles - A window to fundamental physics
Theoretical axion models state that axions are very weakly interacting particles. In order to experimentally detect them, the use of colorful and inspired techniques becomes mandatory. There is a wide variety of experimental approaches that…
[A brief review intended for a general physics colloquium audience.] Astrophysicists now know that 80% of the matter in the universe is `dark matter', composed of neutral and weakly interacting elementary particles that are not part of the…
In this talk I discuss several topics at the interface of particle physics and astrophysics/cosmology. These include the problem of dark matter and two popular dark matter candidates: axions and neutralinos. I also discuss briefly some…
Dark matter constitutes $26\%$ of the total energy in our universe, but its nature remains elusive. Among the assortment of viable dark matter candidates, particles and fields with masses lighter than $40 \mathrm{eV}$, called ultralight…
New particles can manifest their effects in many settings, ranging from effects on sub-atomic to galactic length scales. The nature of these effects depends on the specific particles and their non-gravitational interactions. In this…
Low energy experiments with photons can provide deep insights into fundamental physics. In this note we concentrate on minicharged particles. We discuss how they can arise in extensions of the standard model and how we can search for them…
Axions and axion like particles in general are consequences of the extensions of the standard model in particle physics. Axions have been proposed as hypothetical pseudo-scalar particles in particle physics to solve the strong Charge-Parity…
When atoms come together and bond, we call these new states molecules, and their properties determine many aspects of our daily life. Strangely enough, it is conceivable for light and molecules to bond, creating new hybrid light-matter…
(This is a general physics level overview article about hidden sectors, and how they motivate searches for long-lived particles. Intended for publication in Physics Today.) Searches for new physics at the Large Hadron Collider have so far…
Axion-like particles (ALPs) can provide a portal to new states of a dark sector. We study the phenomenology of this portal when the ALP mainly decays invisibly, while its interaction with the standard model sector proceeds essentially via…
Experimental searches for axions or axion-like particles rely on semiclassical phenomena resulting from the postulated coupling of the axion to two photons. Sensitive probes of the extremely small coupling constant can be made by exploiting…
It is an intriguing possibility that the cold dark matter of the Universe may consist of very light and very weakly interacting particles such as axion(-like particles) and hidden photons. This opens up (but also requires) new techniques…
We consider a cosmological scenario in which the very early Universe experienced a transient epoch of matter domination due to the formation of a large population of primordial black holes (PBHs) with masses $M \lesssim 10^{9}\,\textrm{g}$,…
WIMPs, weakly-interacting massive particles, have been leading candidates for particle dark matter for decades, and they remain a viable and highly motivated possibility. In these lectures, I describe the basic motivations for WIMPs,…
We have strong evidence on all cosmic scales, from galaxies to the largest structures ever observed, that there is more matter in the universe than we can see. Galaxies and clusters would fly apart unless they would be held together by…
In classical mechanics matter and fields are completely separated. Matter interacts with fields. For particle physicists this is not the case. Both matter and fields are represented by particles. Fundamental interactions are mediated by…
Ordinary baryonic particles (such as protons and neutrons) account for only one-sixth of the total matter in the Universe. The remainder is a mysterious "dark matter" component, which does not interact via electromagnetism and thus neither…
Cosmology and particle physics are closer today than ever before, with several searches underway at the interface between cosmology, particle physics, and field theory. The mystery of dark matter (DM) is one of the greatest common unsolved…
The origin of dark matter in the universe may be weakly interacting scalar particles produced by amplification of quantum fluctuations during a period of dilaton-driven inflation. We present two interesting cases, the case of small…
The initial conditions of our Universe can be summarized on a single sheet of paper. Yet the Universe is full of complex structures today, such as stars, galaxies and groups of galaxies. In this review I describe the standard theoretical…