Axion Dark Matter

BIO
Giovanni Villadoro is Research Scientist at ICTP, Trieste. He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Rome La Sapienza and worked at Harvard, CERN and SLAC. He is mainly interested in theories of fundamental interactions, including quantum gravity and cosmology, and beyond-the-Standard Model phenomenology. His research contributions span from lattice gauge theories and flavor physics to supersymmetry and string theory. Since a few years he has been carrying out a fruitful research programme on the physics of axions and is a world expert on this subject.

ABSTRACT
While providing a simple dynamical explanation for the smallness of CP violation in strong interactions, the QCD axion is also one of the most compelling candidates of dark matter in the Universe. While the presence of relic QCD axions is almost guaranteed if such particle exists, a reliable computation of its abundance is still lacking. Such information could be pivotal in both focusing the experimental efforts and drawing the right theoretical conclusions should such particle be found. In this talk I will review the challenges of such computation and the most recent developments.
Q&A