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SUMMARY:Extending the leading direct dark matter searches to lighter parti
 cles - Prof Henrique Araujo (Imperial)
DTSTART:20230207T110000Z
DTEND:20230207T120000Z
UID:TALK195820@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:William Fawcett
DESCRIPTION:The landscape of particle dark matter remains wide open\, and 
 the direct detection of galactic particles via scattering with ordinary ma
 tter is regarded as one of the main avenues to address this mystery. Diffe
 rent experimental techniques each cover limited parts of this parameter sp
 ace\, with the electroweak scale from GeV to TeV masses – the traditiona
 l space for thermally-produced WIMPs motivated by supersymmetry and other 
 models – still attracting most experimental effort. Here there is a rout
 e to address fully the available parameter space above irreducible neutrin
 o backgrounds\, and I will report on the status of the leading search – 
 LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) – and of a future (and maybe definitive) experiment in t
 his space. Just below these masses there are other well-motivated models w
 here dark matter is produced non-thermally\, along with other interesting 
 rare-event physics. These lighter candidates require lighter target materi
 als to yield observable nuclear recoils\, but the largest and most sensiti
 ve detectors are often made from heavier elements – notably xenon. So ho
 w can we extend the reach of these experiments to lower masses? I will des
 cribe the various experimental techniques being used now or being develope
 d\, and our own efforts to enable these searches via the so-called Migdal 
 effect – which we are aiming to confirm experimentally with the MIGDAL e
 xperiment.
LOCATION:Ryle Seminar Room
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