Review article | Physics and astronomy

Dressing light to illuminate axion-symmetry matter

The putative axion particles with parity-time symmetry do not interact with transverse electromagnetic fields; hence, they are thought to constitute at least a part of the cosmological dark matter. Structured optical fields with E⋅B≠0 have the right symmetry to interact with axion dark matter. With the goal of generating fields with E⋅B≠0 that can interact with axion quasiparticles in condensed phase, as a portal for detecting dark matter, we image the vectorial surface plasmon polariton fields with 15 nm spatial resolution and 50 attosecond precision (at the speed of light) to reveal E⋅B≠0 term within the plasmonic vortex cores.

Keywords:

E⋅B≠0parity-time symmetryaxion quasiparticlesspin-charge entanglementultrafast photoemission electron microscopy

Hrvoje Petek^*,†

Affiliations

Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, United States

^*Corresponding author: petek@pitt.edu

^†Video presenter: Hrvoje Petek

Author Information

Hrvoje Petek

Hrvoje Petek, a Jugoslavian scientist, obtained his Ph.D. in Chemistry at the University of California at Berkeley. He spent his formative 15 years at the Institute for Molecular Science, where he learned methods of ultrafast spectroscopy, and Hitachi, Advanced Research Laboratory in Japan, where he developed ultrafast coherent photoelectron spectroscopy. In 2000 he returned to the USA to the University of Pittsburgh, where he is the R.K. Mallon Chair of Physics and Astronomy. There he developed the methods of ultrafast coherent photoelectron microscopy, which he applies to topological plasmonic fields that are featured in this video article. He has received the 2019 Ahmed Zewail Award for Ultrafast Science and Technology.

Petek has benefited greatly from the enthusiasm of his students, in particular, Y. Dai (SUSTEC) and A. Ghosh (University of Chicago). Robin (Chen-Bin) Huang sparked interest in plasmonic vortices, which led to the start of this research; the members of the Interdisciplinary Quantum (IQ) Initiative at the University of Pittsburgh provided a forum for discussing axion physics. Petek has also benefited from the simulations by Qian Chen (SUSTEC) and discussions with K. Bliokh, Q.-D. Jiang, and L.D. Barron. Some of this research was stimulated by a question from an undergraduate student, Tyler Schutt, in Petek’s E&M class. This research was supported by the University of Pittsburgh through the R.K. Mellon chair funds.

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This video article features an AI-assisted digital presenter. AI technology was used solely for video production, while all scientific content was provided and approved by the authors.

Submitted

25 August, 2026

Accepted

10 October, 2026

Published Online

03 November, 2026

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