Dr Christoph Krieger (Institute of Experimental Physics University of Hamburg)
The axion is the hypothetical low-mass boson predicted by the Peccei-Quinn mechanism solving the strong CP problem. It is naturally also a cold dark matter candidate, thus it could simultaneously solve two major problems of nature. Up to recently, there was no existing experimental effort aiming to detect QCD axions in the mass range around 100 µeV, preferred by models in which the Peccei-Quinn symmetry is broken after inflation.
The MAgnetized Disc And Mirror Axion eXperiment is designed to reach sensitivity in the axion mass range of 40 to 400 µeV, a range inaccessible by previous axion experiments. This is reached by applying the dielectric haloscope approach, exploiting the axion to photon conversion at dielectric surfaces within a strong magnetic field. For MADMAX a system of 80 movable dielectric discs of 1.25 m diameter, the booster, inside an approximately 9 T magnetic field is foreseen.
The experiment will be located at DESY Hamburg in Germany and is currently entering its prototyping phase for which a booster with twenty discs of 300 mm diameter is foreseen. The design, realization and timescale of MADMAX will be discussed along with prospects of the MADMAX prototype as well as first proofs of concept guiding the way towards the final experiment and the first physics run.
Location : T125
