October 16, 2023: Jure Zupan

Scouting for light new physics
Abstract: The two most common ways particle physicists are searching for the existence of new forces or new degrees of freedom are either by producing heavy new particles directly, using collisions at the highest achievable energies, or by measuring precisely processes that are very rare. In the colloquium I will review the third possibility that is coming more and more to the fore: if we are lucky enough that light new particles can be produced in the very rare processes, this will open a window to physics at very small scales. Using intuition from condensed matter and atomic physics systems I will explain why in this case there is a parametrically enhanced sensitivity, and review experimental efforts under way to search for such particles.