Speaker
Amalia Madden
Description
I will demonstrate that piezoelectric materials can be used to source virtual QCD axions, generating a new axion-mediated force. Within a piezoelectric material with aligned nuclear spins, I will show that there is a new, effective in-medium scalar coupling of the axion that can be enhanced by up to 7 orders of magnitude relative to the scalar coupling in vacuum. I will then outline a detection method based on nuclear spin precession induced by the axion’s pseudoscalar coupling to nuclear spins. Using this effect, future experimental setups can be sensitive to the QCD axion in the unexplored mass range from 10^-5 eV to 10^-2 eV.
