Conveners
Dark Matter: Parallel 1 — Dark Matter and Hadronic Systems
- Reina Maruyama (Yale University)
Dark Matter: Parallel 2 — Axions and Light Mass Dark Matter
- Reina Maruyama (Yale University)
Dark Matter: Parallel 5 — Light Mass Dark Matter
- Matt Pyle (University of California Berkeley)
- George Fuller (University of California, San Diego)
Dark Matter: Parallel 6 — High Mass Dark Matter
- George Fuller (University of California, San Diego)
- Matt Pyle (University of California Berkeley)
Dark Matter: Parallel 7 — Dark Matter in Astrophysics
- George Fuller (University of California, San Diego)
Dr
Bartosz Fornal
(University of California, San Diego)
29/05/2018, 14:00
DM
Parallel
There is a long-standing discrepancy between the neutron lifetime measured in beam and bottle experiments. We propose to explain this anomaly by a dark decay channel for the neutron, involving one or more dark sector particles in the final state. If any of these particles are stable, they can be the dark matter. We construct representative particle physics models consistent with all...
Dr
Christopher Swank
(Caltech)
29/05/2018, 14:20
DM
Parallel
The neutron lifetime is currently measured by two different types of experiments: "beam" and "bottle". These two measurement techniques have a $4 \sigma$ discrepancy in measured lifetime. It has been proposed recently that a previously unobserved neutron decay branch to a dark matter particle ($\chi$) could account for the discrepancy in the neutron lifetime observed in experiments that use...
Dr
Jonathan Cornell
(McGill University)
29/05/2018, 14:40
DM
Parallel
New decay channels for the neutron into dark matter and other particles have been suggested for explaining a long-standing discrepancy between the neutron lifetime measured from trapped neutrons versus those decaying in flight. Many such scenarios are already ruled out by their effects on neutron stars, and the decays into dark matter plus photon or electron-positron pair have been...
Dr
Enrico Rinaldi
(RIKEN-BNL)
29/05/2018, 15:00
DM
Parallel
Models of composite dark matter, originating from a new strongly coupled dark sector, have a very interesting phenomenology for particles with mass around the hundreds of GeVs. To make robust predictions in these models one often needs to investigate non-perturbative effects due to the strong self interactions. Lattice field theory methods and numerical simulations are well suited for this...
Glennys Farrar
(NYU)
29/05/2018, 15:20
DM
Parallel
A stable sexaquark ($S$) composed of $uuddss$ is a compelling Dark Matter candidate and would not have been discovered in accelerator experiments to date. I will briefly review its particle properties, why the $S$ would have eluded searches for an H-dibaryon, and analyses of Upsilon decay and LHC data suitable to discovering it (as are now underway by BABAR, Belle, CMS and LHCb). The main...
Surjeet Rajendran
(UC Berkeley)
29/05/2018, 16:10
DM
Parallel
Observational limits on the mass of dark matter are weak — they allow the mass of dark matter to be anywhere from $10^{-22}$ eV – $10^{48}$ GeV. In this talk, I will focus on ultra-light dark matter in the mass range $10^{-22}$ eV – $10^{-5}$ eV. A number of well motivated dark matter candidates such as axions inhabit this vast parameter space. Even though these candidates emerge from a number...
Dr
Gianpaolo Carosi
(Lawrence Livermore Natl Lab)
29/05/2018, 16:30
DM
Parallel
The nature of dark matter is one of the great mysteries of modern physics today and is likely new particles beyond the Standard Model. The Axion, originally conceived as a solution to the strong-CP problem in nuclear physics, is one well-motivated candidate. The Axion Dark Matter Experiment (ADMX) was started at LLNL in the mid-1990s and ran until 2010 before it was moved to the U. of...
Prof.
Karl van Bibber
(University of California Berkeley)
29/05/2018, 16:50
DM
Parallel
HAYSTAC (Haloscope At Yale Sensitive To Axion CDM) is a microwave cavity experiment designed both as a data pathfinder and innovation test-bed, in the 3–12 GHz (12–50 $\mu$eV) mass range. The Phase I run program (2016–17) covered a small region of mass around 24 $\mu$eV, achieving a sensitivity in axion-photon coupling well into the range of realistic axion models for a standard halo density....
Mr
Saptarshi Chaudhuri
(Stanford University)
29/05/2018, 17:10
DM
Parallel
We discuss DM Radio, a lumped-LC resonant search for axion and hidden-photon dark matter between 100 Hz and 300 MHz. We illustrate the detection concept and discuss design and fabrication of the Pilot detector, which will operate in liquid helium at 4 K over the next three years and probe hidden photons in a portion of this frequency range. We show results from a fixed-frequency resonator and...
Jonathan Ouellet
29/05/2018, 17:30
DM
Parallel
The evidence for the existence of dark matter is well supported by
many cosmological observations. Separately, long standing problems
within the Standard Model point to new weakly interacting particles to
help explain away unnatural fine-tunings. The axion was originally
proposed to explain the strong CP problem, but was subsequently shown
to be a strong candidate for explaining the Dark...
Daniel McKinsey
29/05/2018, 17:50
DM
Parallel
We propose a new dark matter detector that will be sensitive to nuclear recoils of sub-GeV dark matter, using superfluid helium as a target. Superfluid helium has many merits as a detector target: these include good kinematic matching to low mass dark matter, excellent intrinsic radiopurity, and its unique ability to be cooled down as a liquid to milli-Kelvin temperatures. We propose to read...
Omar Moreno
(SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory)
29/05/2018, 18:10
DM
Parallel
The Light Dark Matter eXperiment (LDMX) proposes a high-statistics search for low-mass dark matter in fixed-target electron-nucleus collisions. Ultimately, LDMX will explore thermal relic dark matter over most of the viable sub-GeV mass range to a decisive level of sensitivity. To achieve this goal, LDMX employs the missing momentum technique, where electrons scattering in a thin target can...
Dr
Samuel McDermott
(FNAL)
31/05/2018, 14:00
DM
Parallel
Supernova 1987A created an environment of extremely high temperatures and nucleon densities. The rough agreement between predictions of core collapse models and observations of a "neutrino burst" provide an opportunity to set bounds on a wide range of theories of new physics. I will present new bounds on dark sector models, incorporating finite-temperature effects on the production and...
Dr
Francisco Ponce
(Stanford University)
31/05/2018, 14:20
DM
Parallel
Astronomical evidence over the past several decades points to a Universe composed primarily of Dark Matter. There are several competing hypotheses about the composition and the interaction mechanisms of Dark Matter. Several groups have assembled instruments to test these ideas by searching for the hypothesized interaction, but despite their best efforts no direct detection has been confirmed...
Dr
qian Yue
(Tsinghua University)
31/05/2018, 14:40
DM
Parallel
There is compelling evidence that about one-quarter of the energy density of the Universe is made up of Dark Matter, the identification and study of which are among the most important goals in basic research. The China Dark Matter Experiment (CDEX) pursues direct searches of light Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) at the China Jinping Underground Laboratory (CJPL), which is the...
Dr
Guillermo Fernandez Moroni
(Fermilab)
31/05/2018, 15:00
DM
Parallel
We present the status and prospects of the Sub-Electron Noise Skipper Experimental Instrument (SENSEI) that uses a non-destructive readout technique to achieve stable readout for thick fully depleted silicon CCD in the far sub-electron regime ($\sim 0.05\ e^-$ rms/pix). This is the first instrument to achieve discrete sub-electron counting that is stable over millions of pixels on a large-area...
Kev Abazajian
(UC Irvine)
31/05/2018, 15:20
DM
Parallel
I will give an overview of the status of keV sterile neutrinos as dark matter, including the production mechanisms in the early universe and detectability today. I will give the status of indirect searches, including the candidate X-ray line at 3.55 keV and prospects for future searches. I will also discuss laboratory detection methods, including searches in beta decay and K-capture nuclei.
Surjeet Rajendran
(UC Berkeley)
31/05/2018, 16:10
DM
Parallel
Observational bounds on the mass of dark matter could allow the dark matter to be as heavy as $10^{48}$ GeV. Such ultra-heavy dark matter candidates emerge as composite objects produced as a result of significant self-interactions in the dark sector. Detection of this kind of dark matter raises new challenges — the low number density of these particles requires detectors with a large target...
Mr
Luca Pagani
(UC Davis)
31/05/2018, 16:30
DM
Parallel
DarkSide uses dual-phase Liquid Argon Time Projection Chambers to search for WIMP dark matter. The talk will present the latest result from the current experiment, DarkSide-50, running since mid 2015 using a 50-kg-active-mass TPC, filled with argon from an underground source. The next stage of the DarkSide program will be a new generation experiment involving a global collaboration from all...
Prof.
Anthony Noble
(Queens University)
31/05/2018, 16:50
DM
Parallel
This talk will present the current status of the PICO dark matter experimental program. The PICO detectors are based on the bubble chamber technology and record potential interactions of WIMPs in the target fluid through phase transitions induced by the energy depositions of recoiling nuclei. The technique is complementary to other dark matter search methods and has lead to recent...
Matthew Szydagis
(U Albany)
31/05/2018, 17:10
DM
Parallel
More recent results will be shared from the Large Underground Xenon (LUX) detector, which was a 100-kg-scale, 2-phase xenon direct dark matter search experiment, operated between 2013–16 at SURF. Dark matter, the missing 25% of the mass-energy content of the universe, is sought in more ways, using effective field theory operators to extend the search to higher-mass Weakly Interacting Massive...
Dr
Nicole Larsen
(University of Chicago / Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics)
31/05/2018, 17:30
DM
Parallel
The past two decades have seen a tremendous increase in the sensitivity of direct detection experiments. In the absence of a definitive dark matter detection, the Large Underground Xenon (LUX) campaign (which ran underground at the Sanford Underground Research Facility from 2013 to 2016) has worked to constrain a far broader set of dark matter interactions than the spin-independent and...
Dr
Yu Chen
(University of Alberta)
31/05/2018, 17:50
DM
Parallel
DEAP-3600 is a single-phase liquid argon (LAr) dark matter detector being operated 2 km underground at SNOLAB. The ultra-pure LAr target is contained in a spherical acrylic vessel of 3600 kg capacity, viewed by an array of 255 photomultiplier tubes (PMTs). The expected sensitivity to the spin-independent WIMP-nucleon cross-section is $10^{-46}$ cm$^2$ at 100 GeV WIMP mass. Natural radioactive...
Reina Maruyama
(Yale University)
31/05/2018, 18:10
DM
Parallel
Astrophysical observations give overwhelming evidence for the existence of dark matter. While the DAMA collaboration has asserted for years that they observe a dark matter-induced annual modulation signal in their NaI(Tl)-based detectors, their observations are inconsistent with those from other direct detection dark matter experiments under most assumptions of dark matter. I will describe the...
Dr
Ryan Keeley
(University of California Irvine)
01/06/2018, 14:00
DM
Parallel
The Milky Way's Galactic Center harbors a gamma-ray excess that is a candidate signal of annihilating dark matter. Dwarf galaxies remain predominantly dark in their expected commensurate emission. In this talk I will discuss the degree of consistency between these two observations, quantified through a joint likelihood analysis. Doing so will incorporate Milky Way dark matter halo profile...
Sean Quinn
(University of California, Los Angeles)
01/06/2018, 14:30
DM
Parallel
The General AntiParticle Spectrometer (GAPS) is a balloon-borne instrument designed to detect cosmic-ray antimatter using the novel exotic atom technique, obviating strong magnetic fields required by experiments like AMS, PAMELA, or BESS. It will be sensitive to primary antideuterons with kinetic energies of $\approx0.05-0.2$ GeV/nucleon, providing some overlap with the previously mentioned...
Lindsay Forestell
(TRIUMF, UBC)
01/06/2018, 15:00
DM
Parallel
Non-Abelian dark gauge forces that do not couple directly to ordinary matter may be realized in nature. If the dark sector is reheated in the early universe, it will be realized as a set of dark gluons at high temperatures and as a collection of dark glueballs at lower temperatures, with a cosmological phase transition from one form to the other. These glueballs can be, if left alone, the...
Srimoyee Sen
(University of Washington)
01/06/2018, 15:20
DM
Parallel
Superradiant axions around black holes can produce electromagnetic signatures via lasing or via conversion to photons in a strong magnetic field. The latter can also produce gravitational wave signatures besides electromagnetic ones in binary merger events involving a strongly magnetized neutron star and a black hole (BHNS). Due to the smallness of the axion mass, medium effects of the black...
