Darkness Illuminated - Dark Matter forces from light-atom experiments

One of the core mysteries of modern physics is the nature of dark matter. Astronomical observations suggest that most of the matter in the universe is not visible to us and is interacting with conventional matter only via gravity or possibly new forces. It is thus extremely challenging to search for this new matter on earth, with current approaches requiring many years of experimental searches with large-scale colliders and detectors costing billions of dollars.

To counter this problem, a new class of cost-efficient small-scale experiments is emerging, building on the extreme precision reachable in atomic spectroscopy. In this project, we specifically aim to probe the effect of a possible new light force carrier X on atomic parity non-conserving transitions in Ytterbium. Through precision spectroscopy on different Yb isotopes we will be able to either infer the presence of X or to limit the allowed couplings of X to neutrons, protons and electrons.