Thursday, March 5, 2020, 16:00
WHGA Auditorium
Ben Kilminster, Zurich University
Abstract:
The consensus is that dark matter exists, but its mass and its
interactions beyond gravitational are speculative. The similarity of the
relic dark matter density with that of baryons may provide a clue. This
relic density may have freezed out, or perhaps freezed in. Dark matter
may be weakly interacting, or instead could interact electromagnetically
if it is part of a hidden sector that mixes with the standard model. It
is therefore necessary to cast a wide net for dark-matter candidates
that are consistent with constraints. Specialized CCD detectors can be
used to measure very small ionization signals of only a few electrons.
In a carefully designed experiment, such measurements can provide
constraints on a range of dark-matter candidates spanning 10 orders of
magnitude in mass. Results from DAMIC (Dark Matter in CCDs) experimental
data taken at SNOLAB and prospects of DAMIC-M at Laboratoire souterrain
de Modane will be discussed.