Searches for axions and other particles at the low mass frontier with (Baby)IAXO and beyond

by Dr Igor Garcia Irastorza (Zaragoza University)

Tuesday 11 Oct 2022, 16:15 → 18:00 Europe/Berlin

Main/0-174 - Auditorium (Main)

In this seminar I will review the motivation, prospects and status of the BabyIAXO axion helioscope under preparation at DESY Hamburg, conceived as a intermediate stage of the International Axion Observatory (IAXO) and whose main goal is the search for axions from the Sun with unprecedented sensitivity. I will then discuss some additional prospects that have technological or scientific relation with IAXO, like the detector development leading to the low-background Micromegas detectors as the baseline technology for the IAXO focal point. A particular byproduct of these developments will be briefly described: the TREX-DM Micromegas-based TPC now in operation underground in search for low-mass WIMPs. Then I will describe the potential of BabyIAXO as a generic axion facility, able to host searches beyond the standard Primakoff solar axion signal. I will focus in particular on the option of implementing “haloscope” setups sensitive to axions from the galactic dark matter halo inside the BabyIAXO magnet, like the one studied within the RADES project, with competitive sensitivity in the 1-2 microeV mass range. I will finish mentioning very promising connections with quantum technologies, in the quest to boost axion searches.