Axion Searches from Black Holes to the Basement

Professor John March-Russell talks about the search possibilities for axions including many current and near future ultra-precise quantum `table top' experiments in the Beecroft basement. The QCD-axion, and its `axion-like-particle' generalisations, lead to new physical effects in an extraordinarily diverse range of settings including cosmology, astrophysical objects like stars and black holes, electromagnetic systems, atoms, molecules, and nuclei. He outlines how this leads to a correspondingly huge range of search possibilities for axions (and even axion dark matter) varying from those involving observations of solar-mass and supermassive black holes and a form of `gravitational atom’, to many current and near future ultra-precise quantum `table top' experiments in the Beecroft basement and others worldwide.