1:30 pm MCP 201
How (Not) to Probe the Axion-Electron Coupling.
Most axion dark matter experiments search for the axion's coupling to photons, but the axion also acts directly on electrons. Designing experiments sensitive to this coupling presents some theoretical subtleties. Many strong signatures claimed in the literature are actually unphysical artifacts of description, and many real signatures are not effective in practice, e.g. due to material shielding effects. Nonetheless, there are new experimental concepts which can achieve strong sensitivity. In particular, I will describe how a "magnetized multilayer" experiment could probe the QCD axion at meV masses, complementing existing proposals sensitive to the axion-photon coupling.