Physics & Astronomy - Cosmology Seminar - Nirmal Raj, Notre Dame

Title: "Multiscatter Frontier of Dark Matter Direct Detection: To the Planck Mass and Beyond"

March 29, 2018
2:00 pm - 3:30 pm
Location
Wilder 202
Sponsored by
Physics & Astronomy Department
Audience
Public
More information
Tressena Manning
603-646-2854

Abstract: I will show that meter-scale underground experiments such as LUX, PandaX-II, XENON, and PICO could discover dark matter up to the Planck mass and beyond, via new dedicated searches for dark matter scattering multiple times as it transits these detectors. These searches would effectively double the reach of current experiments, and open up significant discovery potential through re-analysis of existing and future data. I will also show how the angle of entry into the detector may be used to pinpoint the mass, cross-section and local density of such dark matter with a single experiment. Finally, I will identify a hitherto-neglected effect in studies of strongly interacting dark matter, ``saturated overburden scattering", which extends the reach of published limits and future analyses to arbitrarily large dark matter scattering cross-sections.

Location
Wilder 202
Sponsored by
Physics & Astronomy Department
Audience
Public
More information
Tressena Manning
603-646-2854