Nicholas Rodd

Echos of the Early Universe in Axion Haloscopes

Abstract:
The coming decade will bring dramatic improvement in the axion dark-matter program as new experimental designs move beyond the proof of principle stage. In this talk I will outline two signals beyond dark matter that these instruments could discover. The first is a population of relativistic axions that were produced in the early universe and persist as a residual Cosmic axion Background (CaB). The second is high-frequency gravitational waves; I will outline how exploiting an analogy between axion and gravitational-wave electrodynamics allows for axion haloscopes to be converted into gravitational-wave telescopes. Axion instruments could even be used to detect individual gravitons, and I will end with a brief comment on what this would imply for the quantum nature of gravity.