Abstract: The QCD axion, and axion-like particles (ALPs), are some of the most theoretically well-motivated dark matter candidates. When these axions couple to photons they can be searched for with exceptional sensitivity in traditional cavity haloscope experiments. However, cavity haloscopes are limited in the masses of axions they can search for since the axion Compton wavelength must be matched to the size of the cavity. To search for high mass axions the detection channel must be decoupled from the detector size. Therefore in-medium excitations, e.g., electrons and phonons, are useful since they naturally have energies above a meV. We will discuss how axion absorption into in-medium excitations can be used to search for high mass axion dark matter when the target is immersed in an external magnetic field. These proposals synergize with parallel efforts in the direct detection community to use in-medium excitations to search for the scattering of other light dark matter candidates. In addition to the photon coupling, the axion may also couple directly to electrons. Searching for effects generated by this coupling requires dramatically different experiments. We will discuss how electron spin-ordered targets can be used to absorb axions into magnons, or layered to generate electromagnetic signals.

Abstract: Nuclear beta decay currently provides the most precise extraction of the CKM matrix element | V_ud |. The lifetime of a beta emitter receives radiative corrections and these must be included when extracting fundamental physics constants. 

In this talk I will describe how to organize these corrections using effective field theory, and how to compute ``outer'' corrections in an effective theory in which nuclei are treated as point-like heavy particles. Along the way we will see how the Fermi function emerges as an infinite sum of diagrams in the effective field theory, and how to use renormalization group methods to systematically resum logarithms. 
 

A permanent neutron Electric Dipole Moment (nEDM) presents an experimentally accessible probe of physics beyond the Standard Model.  Six and a half decades of experiments have reduced its upper bound by as many decades, from 5 x 10^-20e.cm to 1.8 x 10^-26 e.cm. Future experimental reductions of the nEDM upper bound are possible with enhanced ultracold neutron (UCN) density and improved magnetic field control.  This talk will focus on the historical attempts to measure nEDM, current methods to search for nEDM, and the state of the art techniques used to design, fabricate, and deploy magnetic field coils.

The search for dark matter holds considerable interest in the physics community. Any laboratory-based evidence of Beyond the Standard Model physics would begin to illuminate the dark sector. Many experiments have searched for such evidence, but so far it has proven elusive. For the nuclear physics community the concept of a low mass dark photon has garnered considerable attention. Of particular recent interest are the well-known g_{\mu}-2 anomaly and an excess observed in the decay of excited states of He-4, Be-8 and C-12, which could be explained by a 17 MeV/c² mass dark boson. The proposed DarkLight experiment would search for this potential low mass force carrier at the TRIUMF ARIEL accelerator in the 10-20 MeV/c² e⁺e^- invariant mass range. This talk will focus on the motivation, physics case, and experimental design of the DarkLight experiment.
 

Pulsars — rapidly rotating neutron stars emitting regular electromagnetic pulses — are pivotal in astrophysical tests of fundamental physics. Their pulse timing precision allows the detection of subtle disturbances from gravitational waves, while their extreme density offers unique insights into theories beyond the Standard Model, especially those predicting baryon number violation (BNV).  Stringent constraints on BNV, arising from its non-observation in experiments, motivate the search for its astrophysical consequences. This talk examines how slow BNV processes, leading to quasi-equilibrium evolution, influence pulsar orbital and spin dynamics. Observations of binary pulsar orbital periods, coupled with the effects of dense matter in neutron star cores, can place severe constraints on BNV. We propose that BNV in pulsars could manifest as anomalies in the second derivative of the spin frequency, transitions between states of spinning down and up, and a spectrum of braking indices. The talk concludes with a discussion on the prospects of detecting these effects, particularly in light of the recent discovery of a stochastic gravitational wave background by pulsar timing arrays.
 

We present the nucleon vector form factors in a convenient parametric form that is optimized for low momentum transfers < few GeV^2. The form factors are determined from a global fit to electron scattering data and precise charge radii measurements with an updated treatment of radiative corrections. We evaluate the unpolarized charged-current elastic neutrino–nucleon scattering cross sections at GeV energies of neutrino oscillation experiments. These cross sections differ by 3–5% compared to commonly used form-factor models. Contrary to these models, our form factors are constrained by recent high-statistics electron–proton scattering data from the A1 Collaboration. We also implement updated nucleon vector form factors in the neutrino event generator GENIE. On top of the form-factor description at leading order, radiative corrections in the Standard Model and potential new physics generate additional contributions. We provide a general framework of invariant amplitudes and explore the impact of modern and future cross section measurements, considering both unpolarized cross sections and polarization observables, on constraining these amplitudes. We also discuss the effects of radiative corrections on the unpolarized cross section and all possible single-spin asymmetries.

In this talk, construction and phenomenological implications of  the effective Hamiltonian for hadronic parity violation in strangeness-nonchanging processes will be presented. I will start with briefly discussing the motivations behind performing such a robust analysis. Next, methods and results of calculating the  anomalous dimension matrices of relevant operators in both leading order (LO) and next-to-leading order (NLO) corrections in QCD is presented.  In particular, I will detail how the existing results of studies in flavor physics can be utilized in these calculations. Further, performing a renormalization group flow of all isosectors to low energy scales (~ 2 GeV), the complete effective Hamiltonian for hadronic parity violation is constructed.  This improved effective Hamiltonian and precise non-perturbative assessments of the quark charges of the nucleon within lattice QCD  are combined to make assessments of the parity-violating meson-nucleon coupling constants. Finally, these theoretical estimates are compared and shown to be in good agreements with recent, precise measurements of hadronic parity violation in few-body nuclear reactions. 

In this talk I will discuss the recently-published gamma-decay scheme for the lowest-energy 1+ excited state in 136-Cs. These decays were studied via the 136-Xe(p,n) reaction at the Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory (TUNL), and were found to include transitions through two isomeric states. This information can be used to formulate background-free searches for charge-current processes, including solar neutrino interactions, in current and planned multi-ton low-background liquid-xenon detectors aimed at direct dark matter detection and the search for neutrinoless double-beta decay.

A sub-component of dark matter with a short collision length compared to a planetary size leads to efficient accumulation of dark matter in astrophysical bodies. Such particles represent an interesting physics target since they can evade existing bounds from direct detection due to their rapid thermalization in high-density environments. In this talk, I will show that their annihilation to visible matter inside large-volume neutrino telescopes can provide a novel way to constrain or discover such particles. The signal is the most pronounced for relic masses in the GeV range, and can be efficiently constrained by existing Super-Kamiokande searches for dinucleon annihilation. I will also talk about possible neutrino signals from the annihilation of such dark matter particles, demonstrating that neutrino signals from the center of the Earth provide sensitivity to the unexplored parts of the parameter space.