Department Colloquium | Axion Dark Matter and Neutrinoless Double-Beta Decay: New Techniques for New Physics

Two of the biggest open questions in the Standard Model of Particle Physics are: is the neutrino its own antiparticle, a Majorana particle, and is Peccei-Quinn Symmetry with the resulting axion the solution to the strong CP problem. The answer to these questions is a portal to new physics and the answer to the even bigger questions of the generation of the matter-antimatter asymmetry and the nature of dark matter. My group works to address these questions with searches for neutrinoless double-beta decay and ultra-light axions. In this talk, I will review the physics that connects these two efforts, the current status of the fields, and our R&D efforts towards the next-generation experiments.