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Newsletter April 2026

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Description

This is April’s edition of the newsletter of the COST action. The aim is to keep you updated on recent and upcoming conferences and postdoc positions on subjects related to WISPs.

 

 

Cosmic Wispers preprints

 

Dark graviton sensing with magnetically levitated superconductors

Valentina Danieli, Paola C. M. Delgado, Federico R. Urban

https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.22647

In this work we study how a magnetically levitated superconductor responds to a spin-2 dark matter field, the dark graviton, in the dHz to kHz frequency range. We show that the dark graviton coupling to matter produces a strain-like tidal acceleration between the superconductor and the readout pick-up loop in a way that is akin to a slow, continuous, massive gravitational wave – this coupling however is challenging to detect. We also show that the coupling to light induces an effective current that sources an oscillating magnetic field, thus driving the superdiamagnetic response of the superconductor. In this case we find that magnetically levitated superconductors could be among the most sensitive laboratory probes of the dark-graviton coupling to electromagnetism, especially at low frequencies.



Deeper analysis of Fermi-LAT unassociated 4FGL J2112.5-3043 for possible identification

Federica Giacchino, Cristina Fernández-Suárez, Miguel Á Sánchez-Conde, M.Ángeles Pérez-García, Stefano Ciprini, Dario Gasparrini

https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.14794

In the 4FGL-DR4 point-source catalog of the Large Area Telescope (LAT) onboard NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Observatory (Fermi-LAT), around a third of the sources are still unidentified (unIDs). In this work, we perform a detailed study of one of them, namely 4FGL J2112.5-3043. Only gamma-ray emission has been detected from this unidentified source, with no counterpart observed at any other wavelength as of today. Together with its high detection significance, this makes 4FGL J2112.5-3043 a particularly compelling target for further investigation. The results of our spectral and spatial analyses show that the source photon spectrum is better described with a subexponential cutoff power-law spectral model, with no significant flux variability over time, and a morphology consistent with being a point-like source. We investigate and discuss the characterized emission within the context of both conventional and exotic astrophysics, namely a pulsar origin or potential dark matter (DM) annihilations in a nearby Galactic subhalo. Although our results are inconclusive and neither confirm a DM origin nor firmly establish an astrophysical nature, we find a spectral preference for the b\bar{b} and c\bar{c} DM annihilation channels over a pulsar origin, thus making this unID a particularly intriguing candidate for next multiwavelength observations.




We encourage participants in the COST action to send us a small summary, typically smaller than the abstract, of their own articles that will appear in the arXiv (after they appear, with their arXiv numbers). The summary will be disseminated in the newsletter.

Send email to 

Alessandro Lella alessandro.lella@unipd.it

Damiano Fiorillo damianofg@gmail.com

with subject: preprint summary for Cosmic WISPers newsletter.






PhD/Postdoc/Junior Positions

  • April

    • Postdoctoral positions in supernova neutrino physics, Beijing link

    • Postdoctoral positions for cosmic exotic particle search, USTC, Hefei link

  • May

    • PhD positions in Astrophysics, Cosmology and Gravitation, Espirito Santo University, South America. link

  • August

    • Postdoctoral researcher positions in theoretical astroparticle physics and axion phenomenology, Annecy LAPTH link

    •  

Conferences

  • April

    • 7th Edition of the international conference Progress on Old and New Themes in cosmology (PONT 2026) link

  • May

    • UniVersum VII -- Naples 2026 link

    • SCALE 2026: Strings & Cosmology – All Lengths Explored (SCALE) link

    • Planck2026 & 6th EuCAPT Symposium link

    • 6th New Physics Opportunities at Neutrino Facilities Workshop (NPN 2026) link

  • June

    • 16th International Workshop on the Identification of Dark Matter 2026 (IDM 2026) link

    • 32nd International Conference on Neutrino Physics and Astrophysics (Neutrino 2026) link

    • PASCOS 2026: The 31st International Symposium on Particles, Strings, and Cosmology (PASCOS2026) link

    • Black Holes & Cosmology 2026 (BHCos26) link

    • 4th Training School of the COST Action CA21106: Cosmic WISPers link

    • 4th General Meeting of the COST Action: Cosmic WISPers (CA21106) link

    • Primordial Cosmology: Novel Perspectives from Scattering Amplitudes, Holography and the Bootstrap link

  • July

    • Exploring New Frontiers in Cosmology: GGI Workshop link

    • Dark Matter and Stars: Multi-Messenger Probes of Dark Matter and Modified Gravity (icdms2026) link

    • Axions in Seoul 2026: Frontiers in Theory, Cosmology, and Experiment (AiS 2026) link

    • New Frontiers in Strong gravity link

  • August

    • XVI International Conference on Gravitation, Astrophysics and Cosmology (ICGAC16) link

    • Invisibles 26 link

    • Listening to the Cosmos: New Frontiers in Gravitational Wave Physics link

    • COSMO-26: 29th International Conference on Particle Physics & Cosmology link

    • Neutrino Oscillation Workshop 2026 (NOW 2026) link

  • September

    • Neutrino Oscillation Workshop 2026 (NOW 2026) link

    • Erice International School/Workshop of Nuclear Physics, 47th course on 'Neutrinos in Cosmology, in Astro-, Particle- and Nuclear Physics' link

    • 36th International School “Francesco Romano” on Nuclear, Subnuclear and Astroparticle Physics (ISFR 2026) link

    • 2nd UNDARK workshop: Astrophysical searches of dark sectors with gamma-ray observations link

  • November

    • 21st Patras Workshop on Axions, WIMPs and WISPs link

  • December

    • 4th International Conference on Neutrinos and Dark Matter (NuDM- 2026) link