Precision Probes of New Physics
The existence of dark matter strongly suggests that there is new physics that might interact weakly with the standard model. The mass range of this new physics is ill constrained and can span many decades of energy. Given the vastness of the unknown, it is necessary to devise experiments that can probe large parts of this parameter space, while being mindful of the cost of such probes. If this new physics is light, a comprehensive experimental program to search for a variety of such particles over a broad range of energy appears possible. This program is enabled by the advances that have occurred in diverse fields of precision metrology (such as atom interferometry, superconducting quantum technologies etc) over the past few decades. In this talk, I will give examples of new experiments that have recently been proposed to search for axion dark matter using nonlinear crystals, short distance forces using Mossbauer spectroscopy, monopole-dipole forces between nucleons and electrons using atom interferometry and scalar-pseudo scalar interactions between matter and light using superconducting cavities.