Dartmouth Events

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

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

Thursday, March 29, 2018
2:00pm – 3:30pm
Wilder 202
Intended Audience(s): Public
Categories: Lectures & Seminars

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.

For more information, contact:
Tressena Manning
603-646-2854

Events are free and open to the public unless otherwise noted.