Abstract: Mirror symmetry and time-invariance violating processes were crucial at establishing the Standard Model of fundamental interactions as we know it, their tiny effects eventually measured after enormous experimental effort. Macroscopic material on the other hand can maximally break these symmetries spontaneously. Inside these materials, Dark Matter can exhibit phenomena otherwise impossible in the vacuum. In this talk, I will discuss such a phenomenon that we call the piezoaxionic effect: In crystals whose structure breaks mirror symmetry, which are broadly known as piezoelectric, dark matter candidates called axions will produce a change in the crystals size, i.e. strain. Such a strain can be detected with well-established methods leading to a new observable for this well-motivated class of Dark Matter candidates.
Short bio:
Asimina Arvanitaki (PhD Stanford University, 2008) is the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Aristarchus Chair in Theoretical Physics at Perimeter Institute, where she has been a faculty member since 2014. She previously held research positions at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley (2008-11) and the Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics at Stanford University (2011-14). Arvanitaki is a particle physicist who specializes in designing new experiments to test fundamental theories beyond the Standard Model. She was co-awarded the 2017 New Horizons in Physics Prize by the Breakthrough Prize Foundation and, in 2022, was awarded the CAP-TRIUMF Vogt Medal.
