Conveners
Dark matter and its detection: parallel session 1A
- Felix Wagner (HEPHY Vienna)
Dark matter and its detection: parallel session 1B
- Marco Regis (INFN - National Institute for Nuclear Physics)
Dark matter and its detection: parallel session 2A
- Christopher McCabe
Dark matter and its detection: parallel session 2B
- Tina Pollmann (Nikhef/University of Amsterdam)
Dark matter and its detection: parallel session 3B
- Phillip Urquijo (University of Melbourne (AU))
Dark matter and its detection: parallel session 3A
- Valentyna Mokina (HEPHY)
Dark matter and its detection: parallel session 4B
- Sebastian Baum (Stanford University)
Dark matter and its detection: parallel session 4A
- Scott Hertel (MIT)
Dark matter and its detection: parallel session 5B
- Marco Taoso (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Torino, Italy)
Dark matter and its detection: parallel session 5A
- Phillip Urquijo (University of Melbourne (AU))
Dark matter and its detection: parallel session 6B
- Riccardo Catena (Chalmers University)
Dark matter and its detection: parallel session 6A
- Ning Zhou (Shanghai Jiao Tong University (CN))
Dark matter and its detection: parallel session 7A
- Matthew Jake Stukel (Gran Sasso Science Institute)
Dark matter and its detection: parallel session 7B
- Simon Viel (Carleton University)
Dark matter and its detection: parallel session 8B
- Victoria Wagner (Technical University of Munich)
Dark matter and its detection: parallel session 8A
- Karoline Julia Schaeffner (Max-Planck Institute for Physics)
This talk is aimed at showing how to consistently incorporate the impact of dark matter subhalos in predictions for indirect dark matter searches, from semi-analytical methods. These have several advantages over blind extrapolations of cosmological simulation results, often used in this context, as they self-consistently account for the dynamical properties of host halos. Examples will be...
The SPLENDOR (Search for Particles of Light Dark Matter with Narrow-gap Semiconductors) experiment is a search for light dark matter via the electron-recoil interaction channel, taking advantage of novel single-crystal narrow-bandgap (order 10-100 meV) semiconductors. Synthesized within the collaboration, the properties of these designer materials imply low dark counts when operated as...
The elastic scattering between dark matter (DM) and radiation can potentially explain small-scale observations that the cold dark matter faces as a challenge, as damping density fluctuations via dark acoustic oscillations in the early universe erases small-scale structure. We study a semi-analytical subhalo model for interacting dark matter with radiation, based on the extended Press-Schechter...
Leading cosmological surveys and models provide strong indications for cold Dark Matter (DM) being a major constituent of our Universe. However, direct observation of the hypothesized galactic flux of DM particles streaming through the Earth remains an open quest.
The SuperCDMS collaboration is currently constructing a Generation-2 direct DM search experiment at the SNOLAB underground...
SuperCDMS is a direct detection dark matter (DM) experiment currently being constructed at the SNOLAB underground laboratory in Sudbury, Canada. A complementary approach of cryogenically cooled Ge and Si crystals together with different sensor designs enables a broadband DM search for particles with masses $\le$ 10 GeV/$c^2$.
In order to reach this sensitivity, it is crucial to understand...
It has been argued that Globular Clusters can be originated as dwarf galaxies whose dark matter is then stripped through tidal interactions with the host galaxy. If that is the case, one can argue that, using compacts stars such as white dwarfs, and assuming that a dark matter component survived the stripping, it is possible to place constrains on dark matter interactions such as annihilation...
SuperCDMS is constructing its second-generation experiment at SNOLAB to detect dark matter candidates with masses $\leq$ 10 GeV/$c^2$ using pure Ge and Si detectors operated at cryogenic temperature. These detectors are of two types. The interleaved Z-sensitive Ionization and Phonon (iZIP) detectors can differentiate between nuclear and electron recoils, providing effective background...
In this talk, I will present updated constraints on 'light' dark matter (DM) particles with masses between 1 MeV and 5 GeV. In this range, we can expect DM-produced $e^\pm$ pairs to upscatter ambient photons in the Milky Way via Inverse Compton, and produce a flux of X-rays that can be probed by a range of space observatories. Using diffuse X-ray data from XMM-Newton, INTEGRAL, NuSTAR and...
We consider threshold effects of thermal dark matter (DM) pairs (fermions and antifermions) interacting with a thermal bath of dark gauge fields in the early expanding universe. Such threshold effects include the processes of DM pairs annihilating into the dark gauge fields (light d.o.f.) as well as electric transitions between pairs forming a bound state or being unbound but still feeling...
DAMIC-M employs skipper charged-coupled devices (CCDs) with detection threshold of just a few ionization charges to search for low-mass dark matter candidates. An important component of the background comes from small-angle Compton scatters of environmental gamma-rays which must thus be characterized down to O(10 eV) energy. We used an Am-241 source to measure gamma-ray scattering on silicon...
The cosmic-ray experiment AMS-02 has reported the possible detection of $\sim 10$ anti-helium events. Conventional production mechanisms struggle to explain the similar fluxes observed for both isotopes ${}^4\overline{\mathrm{He}}$ and ${}^3\overline{\mathrm{He}}$. In this talk, I discuss how these species could be created through "anti-nucleosynthesis" occurring in fireballs of standard model...
The electron-counting capability of the skipper-CCDs has enabled world leading searches for low mass DM-electron scattering in experiments with less than 100g active mass (SENSEI and DAMIC-M). Oscura is the ongoing effort to develop a 10 kg skipper-CCD experiment for dark matter search. In this talk I will discuss the current status and plans for the Oscura experiment, including the...
Axions are considered the most favored solution for explaining both the strong-CP problem and the dark matter mystery. Many experimental searches that rely on the axion-photon conversion under strong magnetic fields utilize the haloscope technique that is sensitive in the microwave region. We, the Center for Axion and Precision Physics Research (CAPP) of the Institute for Basic Science (IBS),...
The LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) experiment, a dual-phase xenon time projection chamber operating from the Sanford Underground Research Facility in Lead, South Dakota, USA, aims to detect Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMP) dark matter candidate particles. It comprises a 10-tonne target mass (7-tonne active) viewed by vacuum ultraviolet photomultiplier tubes in both the liquid xenon's central and...
The International Axion Observatory (IAXO) is a new generation axion helioscope aiming at a sensitivity to the axion-photon coupling of gaγ down to 10-12 GeV-1, i.e. 1-1.5 orders of magnitude beyond CAST, the most sensitive axion helioscope to date. The main elements of IAXO are a large superconducting toroidal magnet with eight bores, x-ray focusing optics and low background detectors. An...
The main goal of the XENONnT detector is the direct detection of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs), aiming to improve the sensitivity by one order of magnitude than XENON1T. The first science run has been completed in 2021 with a total exposure of 1.1 tonne*year. An extremely low electronic recoil background of 15.8 events/(t y keV) has been achieved thanks to the reduction of Kr-85...
Located at China Jinping Underground Laboratory, PandaX experiment uses xenon as target to detect rare physics signals like dark matter. The new generation detector with 4-ton xenon target volume, PandaX-4T, has pushed the constraints on WIMP-nucleon scattering cross-section to a new level with its commissioning run data. In this talk, I will give an overview of PandaX-4T latest results on...
One of the most well-motivated candidates to be the dark matter is the axion, a particle that is predicted by the solution to another long-standing mystery in physics, the strong CP problem. This talk discusses direct searches for low-mass axion dark matter via its photon interactions. The prototype experiment ABRACADABRA-10 cm developed an innovative lumped-element detection method to search...
The DMRadio program consists of a series of lumped element detectors searching for low mass, sub-μeV axion dark matter. The three DMRadio detectors will each be comprised of a superconducting magnet and pickup structure coupled to a high-Q tunable LC resonator. In this talk, I will outline the calibration plan these experiments will employ to determine their end-to-end sensitivity to axion...
PandaX-4T is the first operational multi-tonne experiment for dark matter direct search in China, which released its first commissioning data in 2021 and gained world-leading sensitivity to WIMP at the time. With further lowered energy thresholds and improved analysis techniques, searches for solar neutrino and light dark matter have been carried out. In this talk, I’ll talk about the recent...
The LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) dark matter search experiment, a dual-phase xenon time projection chamber operating at the Sanford Underground Research Facility in Lead, South Dakota, USA, has the world's leading sensitivity to searches for Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs). It is comprised of a 7-tonne target mass and outfitted with photomultiplier tubes in both the central and the...
The experiments in the DMRadio program are designed to search for low mass sub-μeV axion dark matter using the coupling of axions to photons. Specifically, DMRadio-m$^3$ is designed to have sensitivity to KSVZ and DFSZ QCD axions in the 40-830 neV (10-200 MHz) range. A dc solenoidal magnetic field sources an axion current inside a coaxial pickup structure whose resonance frequency is tuned...
The CRESST-III (Cryogenic Rare Event Search with Superconducting Thermometers) experiments main goal is the direct detection of dark matter particles via their scattering off target nuclei in cryogenic detectors. The detectors are equipped with transition edge sensors (TES), operated at around 15 mK. These sensors reach sensitivities down to very low energy depositions ( ≤ 100 eV), allowing...
Quantum Sensors for the Hidden Sector is a UK collaboration developing ultra-low-noise readout and resonant detector technology, aiming initially to search for halo axions in the mass range 25-40 micro-eV. We describe our design, based on a 20cm bore 8T magnet in a dry dilution refrigerator supplied by Oxford Instruments having a target physical temperature of 10mK. We discuss progress towards...
We present a detailed density functional theory (DFT) study of the electronic structure of atomic and liquid xenon to quantify the event rates in Xe-based detectors for dark matter (DM) – electron scattering. Our main goal is to determine whether explicit modelling of the inter-atomic interactions of the liquid phase changes the predicted rates compared to state-of-the-art models based on...
Recent work indicates that nonequilibrium quasiparticles can contribute to decoherence effects in superconducting qubits. Ionizing radiation, for example, has been shown to create space- and time-correlated errors in qubit arrays. For quantum computing, such correlated errors can create problems for standard error correcting codes. For quantum sensing, these same phenomena represent a source...
The Dark Matter Data Center (DMDC) is an ORIGINS Excellence Cluster initiative, supported by the Max Planck Computation and Data Facility. It aims at bringing together the large amount of recorded data and theories pertaining to Dark Matter (DM) research in a unified platform, making it easily accessible for the community. The DMDC offers a repository where data, methods and code are clearly...
Noble gas detectors are a leading technology in low energy rare-event
search experiments. The dominant source of background in these experiments is induced by radioactive decays of radon (and its daughter nuclides), which emanates from detector materials and distributes in the detection volume.
Thorough material selection and surface cleaning are important
measures against radon...
MAGNETO-χ is developing sub-GeV dark matter detectors using diamond crystals and magnetic athermal phonon sensors. Thanks to enhanced nuclear recoil energies by diamond’s low mass carbon nuclei, and low energy threshold of cryogenic magnetic phonon sensors, the MAGNETO-χ detectors could offer high experimental sensitivity to sub-GeV dark matter scatterings. In addition, relatively fast timing...
The presence of a non-baryonic Dark Matter (DM) component in the Universe is inferred from the observation of its gravitational interaction. If Dark Matter interacts weakly with the Standard Model (SM) it could be produced at the LHC. The ATLAS Collaboration has developed a broad search program for DM candidates in final states with large missing transverse momentum produced in association...
Searches in CMS for dark matter in final states with invisible particles recoiling against visible states are presented. Various topologies and kinematic variables are explored, including jet substructure as a means of tagging heavy bosons. In this talk, we focus on the recent results obtained using the full Run-II dataset collected at the LHC.
The EDELWEISS collaboration searches for light Dark Matter (DM) particles using germanium detectors equipped with a charge and phonon signal readout. To circumvent the problem of the large background of events with no ionisation signal ("Heat-Only" events) that limit the sensitivity of our detectors equipped with Ge-NTD sensors, the collaboration has tested the use of NbSi Transition Edge...
The NA62 experiment at CERN took data in 2016–2018 with the main goal of measuring the $K^+ \rightarrow \pi^+ \nu \bar\nu$ decay. The NA62 dataset is also exploited to search for light feebly interacting particles produced in kaon decays. Searches for $K^+\rightarrow e^+ N$, $K^+ \rightarrow \mu^+ N$ and $K^+ \rightarrow \mu^+ \nu X$ decays, where N and X are massive invisible particles, are...
The recent development of highly sensitive solid-state detectors has made it possible to search for light WIMP-like particles with only a few eV of deposited energy. Skipper CCDs allow us to resolve single-electron events, bringing the energy threshold down to 1.2 eV. In addition, some dark matter models predict a diurnal modulation in the DM particle flux. For certain parameters, this...
New physics may have gone unseen so far at the LHC due to it being hidden in a dark sector. This may result in a rich phenomenology which we can access through portal interactions. In this talk, we present recent results from dark-sector searches in CMS using the full Run-2 data-set of the LHC. The analyses are based on proton-proton collision data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of...
In recent years, high sensitivity, low-threshold detectors employing transition edge sensor (TES) read out technology have garnered significant interest in the field of rare-event physics. Numerous experiments have incorporated these detectors for direct dark matter searches, Coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering (CEvNS) studies and beyond. As these experiments scale up and operate...
Cryogenic Rare Event Search with Superconducting Thermometers (CRESST) is a direct detection dark matter (DM) search experiment located at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso in Italy. The experiment employs cryogenic and scintillating crystals to search for nuclear recoils from DM particles, and has achieved repeatedly threshold below 100 eV in a wide range of target materials including...
Collider searches for dark matter (DM) so far have mostly focused on scenarios where DM particles are produced in association with heavy standard model (SM) particles or jets. However, no deviations from SM predictions have been observed. Several recent phenomenology papers have proposed models that explore the possibility of accessing the strongly coupled dark sector, giving rise to unusual...
The Cryogenic Rare Event Search with Superconducting Thermometers (CRESST) is a highly sensitive Dark Matter experiment situated at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS) in Italy, with the capability to detect nuclear recoils down to 10 eV, making it one of the top experiments for probing the sub-GeV mass-parameter space.
However, distinguishing between Dark Matter recoils and...
The Belle II experiment at the SuperKEKB asymmetric-energy electron-positron collider has been collecting the world’s highest-intensity collisions at the $\Upsilon$(4S) since 2019. A data set comparable in size to that of predecessor experiments, and collected with the new detector, enables unique or world-leading results. Examples include indirect searches for non-standard-model physics in...
The DARWIN collaboration is currently designing a detector for high-mass WIMP dark matter with sensitivity to the neutrino fog. The project has the support, in the framework of the new XLZD consortium, of the XENONnT and the LZ collaborations, who are operating the currently most sensitive detectors of this type. With a planned target mass of 40 tonnes of liquid xenon (LXe), the DARWIN...
Sub-GeV dark matter (DM) has been gaining significant interest in recent years, since it can account for the thermal relic abundance while evading nuclear recoil direct detection constraints. Such light DM must carry a larger energy to be probed, either directly or through missing energy/momentum, making beam dump and fixed target experiments ideal for this mass range. Here, we extend the...
DarkSide run since mid-2015 a 50-kg-active-mass dual-phase argon Time Projection Chamber (TPC), filled with low radioactivity argon from an underground source and produced world-class results for both the low mass ($M_{WIMP}< 20 GeV/c^2$) and high mass ($M_{WIMP} > 100 GeV/c^2$) direct detection search for dark matter.
The next stage of the DarkSide program will be a new generation experiment...
The constituents of dark matter are still unknown, and the viable possibilities span a very large mass range. Specific scenarios for the origin of dark matter sharpen the focus on a narrower range of masses: the natural scenario where dark matter originates from thermal contact with familiar matter in the early Universe requires the DM mass to lie within about an MeV to 100 TeV. Considerable...
$U(1)_{L_\mu - L_\tau} \equiv U(1)_X$ model is anomaly free within the Standard Model (SM) fermion content, and can accommodate the muon (g−2) data for $M_{Z′}∼O(10−100)$ MeV and $g_X ∼(4−8)×10^{−4}$. WIMP type thermal dark matter (DM) can be also introduced for $M_{Z′}∼2M_{DM}$, if DM pair annihilations into the SM particles occur only through the s-channel Z′ exchange. In this work, we show...
Darkside-20k is a global direct dark matter search experiment situated underground at LNGS (Italy), designed to reach a total exposure of 200 tonne-years free from instrumental backgrounds. The core of the detector is a dual phase Time Projection Chamber (TPC) filled with 50 tonnes of low-radioactivity liquid argon.
The entire TPC wall is surrounded by a gadolinium-loaded...
DarkSide-50 is a direct detection experiment hunting for dark matter utilizing a dual-phase argon time projection chamber at LNGS in Italy.
On the basis of the ionization spectrum alone, it has established the most restrictive exclusion limit for low-mass dark matter candidates.
Due to its peculiar behavior, it is possible to search for dark matter in a model-independent manner by...
Any Light Particle Search II (ALPS II) is a dual optical cavity enhanced light-shining-through-a-wall (LSW) experiment at DESY in Hamburg looking for axions and axion-like particles with a target search sensitivity of $g_{a \gamma \gamma}$ down to $2 \times 10^{-11}\,\textrm{GeV}^{-1}$ for masses $m_a \leq 0.1\,\textrm{meV}$. Two 120$\,$m long strings of superconducting dipole magnets have...
Dark matter candidates with masses below 10 GeV/c² hold promise, and a new detector, DarkSide-LowMass, is proposed based on the DarkSide-50 detector and the progress towards the DarkSide-20k. DarkSide-LowMass is optimized for low-threshold electron-counting measurements, and sensitivity to light dark matter is explored for various potential energy thresholds and background rates. Our studies...
As it was reported at ICRC 2021 [1], TAUP 2021 [2], and VCI 2022 [3], subterrestrial neutron spectra show weak but consistent anomalies at multiplicities ~100 and above. The origin of the excess events remains ambiguous, but, in principle, it could be a signature of Dark Matter WIMP annihilation-like interaction with a massive Pb target. However, since the results of the available measurements...
Candidates for dark matter are proposed and searched from the sub meV to TeV scales. The indirect observations don’t provide sufficient power to constrain to a narrow parameter space of the searches. One of the dark matter candidates, a deeply bound (uuddss) sexaquark, $S$, with mass in the GeV range is hypothesized to be long lived and very compact, described within the Standard Model of...
A major global effort is currently underway to obtain underground argon for DarkSide-20k (DS-20k), the first large-scale detector of the Global Argon Dark Matter Collaboration (GADMC). Assessing the purity of the underground argon in terms of Ar-39 is crucial for the physics program of this experiment. To achieve this goal, the GADMC is building the DArTinArDM experiment at the LSC laboratory...
The Recoil Directionality project (ReD) within the Global Argon Dark Matter Collaboration aims to characterize the response of a liquid argon (LAr) dual-phase Time Projection Chamber (TPC) to neutron-induced nuclear recoils and to measure the charge yield for low-energy recoils. The charge yield is a critical parameter for the experiments searching for dark matter in the form of low-mass WIMPs...
COSINUS (Cryogenic Observatory for SIgnals seen in Next generation Underground Searches) is designed to unveil the nature of the dark matter signal claim by the DAMA/LIBRA collaboration. COSINUS develops NaI cryogenic scintillating calorimeters with transition edge sensors (TESs) to test the detection of the annually modulating signal observed by DAMA/LIBRA independently from the target...
In this talk, I will discuss how the injection of electrons and positrons from dark matter (DM) annihilation or decay can generate magnetic turbulence in galaxies.
This effect sets a lower limit to the (self-)confinement of the electrons and positrons and thus to their expected radiative emission.
I will specifically apply this approach to the study of synchrotron radiation in dwarf...
Despite recent developments of sensitive dark matter detectors, the mass and nature of dark matter remain poorly constrained, and thus a broad observational strategy may prove helpful toward its ultimate identification. We have developed and tested a novel model-independent approach which utilizes the recent Breakthrough Listen public data release of three years of observation by the Green...
The SABRE experiment aims to find Dark Matter through an annual modulation in the rate of ultra-high purity NaI(Tl) crystals in order to provide a model independent test of the signal observed by DAMA/LIBRA.
SABRE will be a double-site experiment, with two similar detectors located in the Northern hemisphere (LNGS, Italy) and in the Southern hemisphere (SUPL, Australia), in order to...
ANAIS is a direct dark matter detection experiment whose goal is to confirm or refute in a model independent way the positive annual modulation signal reported by DAMA/LIBRA. ANAIS-112, consisting of 112.5 kg of NaI(Tl) scintillators, is taking data at the Canfranc Underground Laboratory in Spain since August 2017. Results corresponding to the analysis of three years of data show no modulation...
A radiative decaying Big Bang relic with a mass $m_a≃5−25$ eV, which we dub ``blue axion'', can be probed with direct and indirect observations of the cosmic optical background (COB). The strongest bounds on blue-axion cold dark matter come from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) measurements of COB anisotropies at 606 nm. We suggest that new HST measurements at higher frequencies (336 nm and...
ISAI, Investigating Solar Axion by Iron-57, is an experiment dedicated for independent measurement of an axion-nucleus coupling constant $g_{aN}$ without introducing mixture of the other interactions. Iron-57, the third most abundant and stable iron isotope, would be in core of the Sun. Monochromatic 14.4 keV axion would be produced by de-exiction of the thermally excited isotope in the Sun...
The Weakly Interacting Massive Particle (WIMP) is considered to be the hypothetical particle that has been the leading candidate for dark matter for decades. The PICOLON (Pure Inorganic Crystal Observatory for Low energy Neutr(al)ino) project is directly search for WIMP dark matter using ultra-pure NaI(Tl) crystals at the Kamioka underground Laboratory.
In the search for WIMP, the quenching...
Axions are intriguing candidates for dark matter. Depending on the formation mechanism of axion dark matter, the axion field may exhibit substantial density fluctuations on small scales. These density fluctuations lead to the formation of self-gravitating clumps of axions, known as miniclusters and axion stars. In this talk, I will discuss these clumps and what is, and what is not, known about...
Understanding nuclear recoil quenching factors, the ratio of the scintillation light yield produced by nuclear and electron recoils of the same energy, is critical for rare event searches, such as dark matter and neutrino experiments. Because NaI(Tl) crystals are widely used for dark matter direct detection and neutrino-nucleus elastic scattering measurements, the low-energy quenching factor...
NaI-based experiments are becoming increasingly popular in the field of direct dark matter searches with the DAMA-LIBRA experiment being stand out for its reported observation which is in direct contrast with other results. Most of these experiments use TI-doped NaI crystals as single-channel scintillation-only detectors. In these types of experiments, a precise measurement of the quenching...
Primordial black holes (PBHs) as a dark matter (DM) candidate become popular again recently. Through their Hawking radiation, we can analysis their signal by $\gamma$-ray emissions. Our work focuses on cross-correlating the MeV $\gamma$-ray emissions and the cosmic microwave background shear to constrain the fraction of PBHs as DM. Near-future data can provide a tight constraint on the...
The Migdal effect predicts that the scatter of a neutral particle with a nucleus can result in atomic excitation or ionization. In liquid xenon dark matter detectors, the additional Migdal energy deposition enhances observable scintillation and ionization signals, and elevates a fraction of dark matter interactions from below the detector thresholds to above thresholds. Therefore, the Migdal...
In the Fall of 2019, the NEWS-G experiment used its latest detector, a 140 cm diameter Spherical Proportional Counter (SPC) to search for low-mass dark matter at the Laboratoire souterrain de Modane (LSM), in France. The detector has then been moved to SNOLAB in Canada, where it has been taking data since Fall 2022. SPCs are metallic spheres filled with gas, with a high voltage anode at the...
The CRESST (Cryogenic Rare Event Search with Superconducting Thermometers) experiment operates cryogenic detectors in a a low-background setup at the deep underground facility of LNGS (Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso) in Italy to search for nuclear recoils induced by dark matter particles. To collect the signal, a variety of target crystals such as CaWO$_4$, Al$_2$O$_3$, Si, and LiAlO$_2$...
The Migdal in Galactic Dark mAtter expLoration (MIGDAL) experiment aims to make the first direct and unambiguous observation of the Migdal effect from fast neutron scattering using intense DT and DD generators, allowing the effect to be investigated over a wide range of nuclear recoil energies.
The experiment uses an Optical Time Projection Chamber equipped with a stack of two glass-GEMs...
The latest results from the DEAP-3600 experiment will be presented. Located 2 km underground at SNOLAB in Sudbury, Canada, DEAP-3600 is looking to detect dark matter using 3.3 tonnes of liquid argon contained in a large ultralow-background acrylic cryostat that is instrumented with 255 photomultiplier tubes. Key to this experiment is the excellent demonstrated performance of pulse-shape...
The Windchime Project aims to utilize advancements in quantum sensing technologies to search for dark matter in the lab, based solely on its feeble gravitational interaction. Recent work has suggested the possibility to search for dark matter with mass near the Planck scale (around 10$^{19}$ GeV or 20 micrograms), a parameter space theoretically well-motivated and experimentally accessible....
The PICO collaboration is currently commissioning the PICO-40L bubble chamber for use in dark matter direct detection. PICO-40L is the first large-scale implementation of the so-called “Right-Side-Up” design which inverts the detector geometry compared to previous bubble chambers. This orientation is intended to reduce the possibility of spurious backgrounds and improve upon the...
The Windchime Project aims to search for ultraheavy dark matter ($m \sim 10^{19}\,\mathrm{GeV}$) by leveraging advancements in quantum sensing technology, striving to detect dark matter through its gravitational interaction alone. However, dark matter could instead exist as an ultralight bosonic particle ($m < \mathrm{eV}$), and it has recently been shown that the same technology could be used...
In this talk, I will introduce AION, a multi-stage atom interferometer project that aims to detect ultra-light dark matter candidates. The first stage, AION-10, will stand 10m tall in a stairwell in the Physics Department in the University of Oxford. AION-10 will operate in a gradiometer configuration, which means that two identical atom interferometers are run simultaneously, launching from...
The direct detection of light (sub-MeV) dark matter presents a significant challenge due to the need for very low energy thresholds. I will discuss the Optomechanical Dark-matter INstrument (ODIN), a new proposal to use a superfluid helium optomechanical cavity to search for dark matter in the keV mass range. Scattering dark matter excites a single (ueV range) phonon in the superfluid helium,...
Quantum devices with ultrahigh sensitivities are being designed for various purposes ranging from developing quantum computers to building powerful telescopes. Typically, they use the sharp transition between superconducting and normal states of matter to detect small energy deposition. Such devices have also been used in direct detection experiments for light dark matter. I will talk about a...
Potassium-40 ($^{40}$K) is a long-lived, naturally occurring radioactive isotope. It decays primarily by beta emission to calcium, and by electron-capture to an excited state of argon. An additional electron-capture to the ground state of argon theoretically exists, but has never been previously measured. Predicted intensities for this branch are highly variable (0-0.8%) and this decay channel...
Direct searches of sub-GeV light dark matter and its interactions with electrons has been a fast-progressing area. Because the observable energies overlap with typical atomic, molecular, or condensed-matter scales, the detector responses play a crucial role in experimental data analyses and interpretation (so far, in terms of exclusion limits).
In this talk, I will discuss our approach in...
The search for electronic transitions induced by the scattering of Milky Way dark matter (DM) particles in detector materials has attracted a great deal of attention in recent years as it can probe DM masses that are not accessible in conventional nuclear recoil experiments. In this talk, I introduce a formalism that can describe the scattering of DM particles by electrons bound in detector...
The presence of dark matter can explain several observations in the universe. However, its nature is still unknown. Therefore, the study of dark matter is a rapidly evolving field. New techniques and methods are being applied all the time. The measurement of the direction of WIMP-induced nuclear recoils is a challenging strategy to extend dark matter searches beyond the neutrino floor...
We propose a method for detecting single chiral phonons and their use as directional dark-matter detectors with O(meV) energy thresholds. This detection mechanism would be capable of exploring a multitude of unprobed dark-matter candidates as well as serve as a quantum sensor that can open up new directions in precision measurements for experimental physics.
The sensitivity of the direct dark matter search is being improved by various energy-sensitive experiments such as XENONnT, LZ, Panda-X and so on. On the other hand, in order to reveal properties of the dark matter particle after its discovery or to explore beyond the neutrino floor region, direction-sensitive dark matter search is designed and taken place recently. NEWAGE the...
Nuclei that are unstable with respect to double beta decay are investigated in this work for a novel Dark Matter (DM) direct detection approach. In particular, the diagram responsible for the neutrinoless double beta decay can be considered for the possible detection technique of a Majorana DM fermion in-elastically scattering on a (double beta) unstable nucleus, stimulating its decay. The...
The CYGNUS proto-collaboration aims to establish a Galactic Directional Recoil Observatory at the ton-scale that could test the DM hypothesis beyond the Neutrino Floor and measure the coherent and elastic scattering of neutrinos from the Sun and possibly Supernovae. A unique capability of CYGNUS will be the detailed measurement of topology and direction of low-energy nuclear and electron...
In this talk, we present and discuss the latest results of the SENSEI experiment at SNOLAB. We will also discuss the prospects for rare event searches with skipper-CCDs. Skipper-CCDs are pixelated silicon-based detectors that can perform multiple non-disruptive measurements of the same charge package. Their sub-electron resolution allows the detection of eV energy transfers, such as that...
We are going to present the CYGNO project for the development of an high precision optical readout gaseous Time Projection Chamber (TPC) for directional Dark Matter search and solar neutrino spectroscopy, to be hosted at Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS). CYGNO peculiar features are the use of sCMOS cameras and PMTs coupled to GEMs amplification of an helium-fluorine based gas mixture...
The DAMIC-M experiment employs thick, fully depleted silicon charge-coupled devices (CCDs) to search for sub-GeV dark matter particles. Thanks to its multiple non-destructive measurements of the pixel charge, DAMIC-M skipper CCDs achieve single-ionization charge resolution and an energy threshold in the eV-scale. We report on the progress of the experiment and first results from prototype...
The invention of skipper-CCDs with sub-electron noise has paved the way for groundbreaking low-threshold dark matter (DM) experiments, such as DAMIC and SENSEI. Conventionally, these experiments are deployed underground to mitigate cosmogenic backgrounds; however some dark matter signatures are inaccessible to underground experiments due to attenuation in the Earth’s atmosphere and crust. The...
We present results from a 3.1 kg-day target exposure of two 24-megapixel skipper charge-coupled devices (CCDs) deployed in the DAMIC setup at SNOLAB. With a $10\times$ reduction in pixel noise, we investigate the excess population of low-energy bulk events previously observed. We address the dominant systematic uncertainty of the previous analysis through an improved strategy to reject CCD...
The QUEST-DMC experiment aims to utilise superfluid He-3 instrumented with quantum sensors to access sub-GeV dark matter parameter space. The experiment will have a superfluid 3-He target, operated below 100 microKelvin, contained in cubic cells instrumented with nanomechanical resonators read out by SQUIDs.
Superfluid He-3 is an ideal target medium for sub-GeV dark matter searches, in...
COSINE-100 is a dark matter direct detection experiment aimed at verifying DAMA/LIBRA's claim of observing annual modulation signals using NaI(Tl) crystals. Between September 2016 and March 2023, the COSINE-100 experiment collected physics data at the Yangyang underground laboratory in Korea using 106 kg of NaI(Tl) crystals. The detector assembly design is currently being upgraded to ...
The ANAIS (Annual modulation with NaI(Tl) Scintillators) experiment is intended to search for dark matter annual modulation with ultrapure NaI(Tl) scintillators in order to provide a model independent confirmation or refutation of the long-standing DAMA/LIBRA positive annual modulation signal in the low energy detection rate, using the same target and technique. Other experiments exclude the...
The search for dark matter has recently broadened to focus on a much wider class of candidates, including particle-like dark matter lighter than the traditional WIMP. The SPICE/HeRALD (or TESSERACT) collaboration has been formed to search for light (MeV-GeV) dark matter interactions in a variety of targets read out by TES-based calorimeters. In this talk, we describe the efforts of the SPICE...
We report recent progress toward using superfluid 4He for nuclear recoil direct detection, as part of the overall TESSERACT pre-Project R&D effort. in the US. The 4He "quantum evaporation" signal pathway allows both a low threshold and the possibility of rejecting the primary background (heat-only events in the calorimetry itself) through multi-channel coincidence. We have recently...
The CDEX program pursues the direct detection of light dark matter candidates with an array of germanium detectors since 2009 at the deepest operating underground site, China Jinping underground laboratory (CJPL) located in Sichuan, China, with a rock overburden of about 2400m. Searches of modulation effect of light WIMPs, WIMPs-nucleus interaction via Midgal effect, dark photon model, solar...
Developments over the last decade have pushed the search for particle dark matter (DM) to new frontiers, including the keV-scale lower mass limit for thermally-produced DM. Galactic DM at this mass is kinematically matched with the energy needed to break a Cooper pair in common superconductors (~meV). Quantum sensors such as superconducting qubits are sensitive to these broken Cooper pairs,...
In recent years, the threshold of Dark Matter search experiments has been lowered, enabling the search for Dark Matter-electron scattering. In the region of interest for mass and cross-section that current experiments can reach, the propagation of particles from the Dark Matter wind through the Earth can produce a (sideral) daily modulation in the observed signal. We explore the modulation...
BULLKID is an innovative cryogenic particle detector to search for low-energy nuclear recoils at the 100 eV energy scale.
It consist of an array of 60 silicon absorbers of 0.3 g each sensed by phonon-mediated, microwave-multiplexed Kinetic Inductance Detectors.
The total active mass is 20 g but the tecnology is designed to be easily scalable to 1 kg.
BULLKID's unique feature consists in...
Minerals are solid state nuclear track detectors - nuclear recoils in a mineral leave latent damage to the crystal structure. Depending on the mineral and its temperature, the damage features are retained in the material from minutes to timescales much larger than the age of the Solar System. The damage features from the fission fragments left by spontaneous fission of heavy unstable isotopes...
The QCD axion is a compelling dark-matter candidate that also solves the strong CP problem using a Peccei-Quinn mechanism. The Axion Dark Matter eXperiment (ADMX) is the leading axion haloscope searching for dark matter in the micro-eV mass range favored by theoretical models. ADMX uses a single tunable resonant microwave cavity immersed in a magnetic field to look for the production of...
While the search for Dark Matter in the form of massive WIMPs sets stronger and stronger limits, the low mass region of the DM-nucleon scattering parameter space has been barely probed. An efficient detection of Light Dark Matter (LDM) requires a sub-keV detection energy threshold and large exposure. Solid state detectors can reach O(10 eV) threshold, but they are limited in exposure by their...
Many low-threshold experiments observe sharply rising event rates of yet unknown origins below a few hundred eV, and larger than expected from known backgrounds. Due to the significant impact of this excess on the dark matter or neutrino sensitivity of these experiments, a collective effort has been started to share the knowledge about the individual observations. For this, the EXCESS workshop...
MADMAX, the MAgnetized Disc and Mirror Axion eXperiment, is a novel dielectric haloscope concept to detect the axion in the mass range 40-400 ueV through enhancement of the inverse Primakoff process. The discovery of the axion could solve both the strong CP problem, fundamental in particle physics, and the dark matter problem. In this talk, I will review the MADMAX design concept and discuss...
The axion is a hypothetical particle proposed to solve the so-called CP violation problem in strong interactions. If the axion exists, it could be intensively born inside the Sun, and then can be detected in the inverse reaction of resonance absorption by a $^7$Li-containing detector. A search for $^7$Li solar axions was performed with the Li$_2$MoO$_4$ low-temperature detectors of the AMoRE...
The XENON series of experiments has played a leading role in developing the liquid-xenon time-projection-chamber technology toward becoming the most sensitive way to detect WIMPs. Within the technologies being developed, we have also pushed the frontiers of what is possible in data analysis as we have tackled core problems in applying machine learning techniques to astroparticle experiments. ...
