20th Patras Workshop on Axions, WIMPs and WISPs

Session

Morning - 1

22 Sept 2025, 09:20

68. Looking at Stars, Aiming for Axions

Georg Raffelt (Max Planck Institute for Physics, Garching)

22/09/2025, 09:20

Using stars as natural laboratories for fundamental physics is an idea with deep roots, but recent years have seen a dynamic resurgence in this approach. In this talk, we will explore how stellar observations - both historical and cutting-edge - are shedding light on axions and other feebly interacting particles. By tracing the evolution of these ideas, from classic arguments to modern...

28. Light dark matter search in XENONnT

Yongyu Pan

22/09/2025, 10:00

The XENONnT experiment aims at the direct detection of dark matter. It employs a dual‐phase xenon time projection chamber and has been operating at Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS) in Italy since 2020, with an active mass of 5.8 tonnes.

XENONnT is most sensitive to weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) above 6 GeV/c² scattering off xenon nuclei by detecting both...

21. Dilaton phase transitions and axion relic pockets

David Marsh (Stockholm University)

22/09/2025, 10:20

Pseudo-scalar axions are ubiquitous in high-energy theory, and so are their scalar partners, here called ‟dilatons”, that dynamicalise the corresponding gauge couplings. In this talk, I will discuss the cosmology of dilatons and axions, focussing on the impact of dilaton phase transitions. First, I will show how cosmological dilaton phase transitions can lead to the trapping and compression of...