Conveners
DM: direct detection
- Christopher Eckner (University of Nova Gorica)
DM: direct detection
- Christopher Eckner (University of Nova Gorica)
DM: indirect detection
- Marco Cirelli (CEA/Saclay)
DM: indirect detection
- Marco Cirelli (CEA/Saclay)
DM: indirect detection
- Marco Cirelli (CEA/Saclay)
DM: charged anti-matter
- Fiorenza Donato (Torino University)
DM: axions
- Francesca Calore (LAPTh, CNRS)
DM: astrophysics
- Francesca Calore (LAPTh, CNRS)
DM: indirect detection
- Francesca Calore (LAPTh, CNRS)
DM: primordial black-holes & accelerators
- Silvia Manconi
DM: developments
- Silvia Manconi
The XENONnT experiment is a dual-phase xenon time projection chamber (TPC) designed for the direct detection of dark matter. It has been operating at the INFN Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (Italy) since 2020, with a total xenon mass of 8.6 tonnes. During the first two science runs, XENONnT collected data with a total exposure of about 3.5 tonne-years. Thanks to its extremely low...
SENSEI (Sub-Electron Noise Skipper Experimental Instrument) is the first experiment to implement silicon skipper CCDs to search for dark matter. Skipper-CCDs can resolve single electrons in each of millions of pixels, which allows for the low energy threshold required to detect sub-GeV dark matter interacting with electrons. SENSEI recently measured the lowest event rates containing one...
The PandaX-4T experiment, a multi-ton scale liquid xenon detector, has achieved leading-edge physical results across multiple research targets with its latest accumulated exposure. Leveraging its unprecedented sensitivity and low background capabilities, PandaX-4T has conducted extensive searches for Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) and other exotic DM candidates, setting stringent...
The NEWS-G experiment uses spherical proportional counters (SPC) to probe for low mass dark matter. An SPC is a metallic sphere filled with gas with a high-voltage anode at its centre producing a radial electric field. The interaction between a dark matter particle and a nucleus can cause ionization of the gas, which leads to an electron avalanche near the anode and a detectable signal.
The...
DarkSide-20k is a next-generation multi-ton dark matter experiment currently being built at the INFN Gran Sasso National Laboratory (LNGS). Building on the success of the DarkSide-50 detector, which has been in operation since 2015, DarkSide-20k will feature a dual-phase Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber (TPC) with a 20-tonne fiducial mass (50-tonne active), designed to achieve...
The DEAP-3600 experiment is a direct dark matter detection experiment located 2 km deep underground at SNOLAB, Canada. 3.3 tonnes of liquid argon contained in an acrylic vessel instrumented with 255 PMTs are used for this experiment. It aims to measure nuclear recoil of argon caused by weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), a potential dark matter candidate. Since 2019, DEAP-3600 has...
SABRE is an international collaboration that will operate similar particle detectors in the Northern (SABRE North) and Southern Hemispheres (SABRE South). This innovative approach distinguishes possible dark matter signals from seasonal backgrounds, a pioneering strategy only possible with a southern hemisphere experiment. SABRE South is located at the Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory...
In this talk I will introduce the DarkSide-20k detector, now under construction in the Gran Sasso National Laboratory (LNGS) in Italy, the largest underground physics facility in the world devoted to astroparticle physics. The experimet is designed to directly detect dark matter by observing weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) scattering off the nuclei in 20 tonnes of...
The Super Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (SuperCDMS) experiment at SNOLAB explores dark matter particles in the widely unexplored mass range of 1-10 $GeV/c^2$. The experiment will deploy a total of 24 detectors with silicon and germanium target substrates 2 km deep underground in SNOLAB. The detectors are arranged in four towers, combining the low-threshold sensitivity of high-voltage (HV)...
The study of non-gravitational effects of Dark Matter (DM) is a growing field of research, leading to the development of numerous dedicated experiments. Astrophysical and cosmological observations show that the galactic component of DM is non-relativistic; this results in a rapid loss of sensitivity to sub-GeV DM masses in Direct Detection experiments with nuclear targets sensitive to...
I discuss the bounds on WIMP-proton and WIMP-neutron couplings of spin-independent and spin-dependent long-range interactions via massless mediator. I update the bounds in the Standard Halo Model for direct detection and the neutrino signal from WIMP annihilation in the Sun, and set halo-independent bounds using the single-stream method.
In the case of a massless mediator the capture rate...
The NEWS-G experiment, located at the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) in Canada, is searching for Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) in the sub-GeV mass range. This direct dark matter detection experiment uses Spherical Proportional Counters (SPCs) as detectors, which measure nuclear recoils in noble gases. Since nuclear recoils are quenched compared to electronic recoils, precise...
The nature of dark matter (DM) remains mysterious despite decades of indirect, direct and collider searches. Indirect searches for DM attempt to observe the gamma rays produced in DM decay or annihilation. Depending on the DM particle mass, these gamma rays may be in the very-high-energy regime (>100 GeV). The Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System (VERITAS), an imaging...
Dark Matter (DM) remains a great mystery in modern physics. Among various candidates, the weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) scenario stands out and is under extensive study. The detection of the hypothetical gamma-ray emission from WIMP annihilation could act as a direct probe of electroweak-scale interactions, complementing DM collider searches and other direct DM detection...
The annihilation of dark-matter particles may lead to the production of monochromatic gamma-ray emission. In this contribution, the search for spectral lines in the gamma-ray spectrum using nine years of data collected with the space-borne Dark Matter Particle Explorer is presented. No line signal is found between 5 GeV and 1 TeV in several regions of interest. The constraints on the...
Exploring Dark Matter (DM) scenarios through the TeV emission from Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs) has the potential to provide constraints on the existence of DM candidates such as the Axion-like Particles (ALPs). The very high-energy gamma-ray spectrum of nearby AGNs is expected to be attenuated due to pair production interactions with the Extragalactic Background Light (EBL). However, if...
As the largest gravitationally bound object in the Universe, galaxy clusters are favorable targets for indirect dark matter (DM) search. The GeV-TeV gamma-ray line is the smoking gun signal of the DM annihilation/decay. From the 15.5 years' observation data of the nearby massive galaxy clusters by Fermi-LAT, we detect a tentative gamma-ray line signal at ~43 GeV. The line signal has a net TS...
Dwarf Spheroidal (dSph) galaxies are very promising laboratories for the indirect search for Dark Matter (DM), due to their low astrophysical background in radio and gamma-ray frequencies.
For the past several decades, the prompt emission from DM annihilation signatures has been explored through modeling and the setting of limits. In addition to the direct annihilation signatures from...
Current radio interferometers, with their high sensitivity and angular resolution, are uniquely positioned to investigate the predicted faint signals arising from Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs). Among the most powerful instruments in the southern hemisphere is MeerKAT, a precursor to the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), which offers world-leading capabilities for probing dark...
Intermediate mass black holes (IMBHs), with masses ranging from a hundred and a million solar masses, are hypothesised to be surrounded by dense regions of dark matter known as dark matter spikes, where the annihilation of dark matter particles could produce detectable gamma rays. The detection of dark matter annihilation around IMBHs therefore offers a promising approach for probing the...
The quest to identify the true nature of dark matter remains one of the most pressing challenges in modern physics. We present here a novel approach to probe DM by analyzing mini spikes in DM density around stellar mass black holes using 14 years of data from the Fermi Large Area Telescope (Fermi-LAT). These mini spikes, formed due to the adiabatic growth of black holes in DM halos, can...
The Southern Wide-field Gamma-ray Observatory (SWGO) is a planned very-high-energy gamma-ray observatory that will provide novel and complementary insights about the southern-hemisphere sky thanks to its high sensitivity, wide field of view, and continuous observation capabilities. Centaurus A (CenA) is an Active Galactic Nucleus that has been detected at TeV energies by the H.E.S.S....
Dark matter is one of the most important and elusive enduring mysteries of physics in the last century. Gamma ray astronomy offers a possible avenue to determine dark matterโs particle nature through observation of gamma ray by-products of its annihilation or decay. However, it is challenging to formulate a robust dark matter search given our lack of knowledge on dark matter physics. In this...
Despite compelling astrophysical and cosmological evidence for dark matter (DM), its fundamental nature remains a mystery. We present sensitivity estimates for detecting DM particles using the next-generation Southern Wide-field Gamma-ray Observatory (SWGO), a very-high-energy gamma-ray facility under development in the Southern Hemisphere. SWGO will be sensitive to gamma rays in the energy...
Higgsino dark matter (DM) is a well-motivated candidate in supersymmetric theories, with a 1.1 TeV thermal higgsino naturally accounting for the observed DM abundance. Despite its strong theoretical foundation, detecting the higgsino remains challenging.
Direct detection is hindered by its suppressed scattering cross-section and theoretical uncertainties on contaminated background,...
Dark Matter (DM) particles may either self-annihilate or decay, producing detectable Standard Model (SM) particles, including gamma rays. These processes could lead to excesses in the gamma-ray energy spectra observed on Earth. In this work, we search for those excesses using the Fermi Large Area Telescope (Fermi-LAT) observations of the Milky Way in an energy range from 1 GeV to 1 TeV. We...
Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) in the GeV-TeV mass range could produce gamma rays through self-annihilation, offering potential observational signatures for indirect dark matter (DM) searches. Dwarf spheroidal galaxies (dSphs) of the Milky Way are prime targets for such studies due to their high inferred DM-induced gamma-ray fluxes and minimal astrophysical background.
In this...
The search for dark matter is advancing into a new era with the development of next-generation gamma-ray observatories, which will significantly enhance detection capabilities. These instruments will extend the limits of detection, offering new opportunities to investigate one of the most elusive components of the universe. Among them, the Southern Wide-field Gamma-ray Observatory, SWGO,...
Dwarf galaxies offer a unique window into the dark sector---either by being overwhelmingly dominated by dark matter or by having evolved in near isolation from disruptive baryonic processes. Using more than 15 years of Fermi-LAT gamma-ray data, we probe dark matter annihilation in two regimes. First, we target ultra-faint dwarf galaxies, such as the newly discovered Ursa Major III, whose...
The search for low-energy anti-nuclei in cosmic rays provides a means to test fundamental physics questions, such as the potential existence of primordial antimatter and the nature of Dark Matter.
The โPHeSCAMIโ (Pressurized Helium Scintillating Calorimeter for AntiMatter Identification) project aims to explore a novel method for identifying anti-nuclei in cosmic rays. Specifically, when...
GAPS is a long-duration balloon experiment designed to measure the flux of low-energy (< 0.25 GeV/n) cosmic antinuclei as signatures of dark matter. The GAPS instrument, which is assembled in Antarctica in preparation for its first flight later this year, will measure the antiproton flux in an unexplored low-energy range; be the first experiment optimized for cosmic antideuterons, a โsmoking...
The General Anti Particle Spectrometer (GAPS) is a balloon-borne cosmic-ray experiment which prepared to launch in the past Antarctic summer season 24/25.
Its primary science goal is the search for light antinuclei in cosmic rays at kinetic energies below 0.25 GeV/n. This energy region is especially of interest for dark matter searches and is still mostly uncharted.
GAPS promises to yield...
The General Anti-Particle Spectrometer (GAPS) experiment aims to elucidate the nature of dark matter by detecting antiparticles using a long-duration scientific balloon over Antarctica. The GAPS detector consists of a tracker made of lithium-drifted silicon detectors, surrounded by two layers of Time-of-Flight (ToF) plastic scintillators. To achieve an energy resolution of 4 keV FWHM in the...
GRAMS (Gamma-Ray and AntiMatter Survey), one of the NASA Physics of the Cosmos missions, is a balloon-borne experiment utilizing a LArTPC (Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber) detector that is potentially expandable to a future satellite mission. GRAMS aims for both MeV gamma-ray observations and antimatter-based indirect dark matter searches. With a low-cost, large-scale LArTPC detector,...
When the Peccei-Quinn symmetry breaks after inflation, domain walls will form at the QCD scale in the axion field if there is more than one quark charged under the symmetry (as in e.g. the DFSZ model). When destabilised by quantum gravity effects, the collapse of the wall network creates relativistic axions, which subsequently turn non-relativistic and contribute to cold dark matter....
Axion-like particles (ALPs) are hypothetical pseudoscalar particles predicted in several extensions of the Standard Model. These particles have the potential to address both the dark matter problem and the strong CP problem. One method to detect ALPs is through the phenomenon of ALP-photon oscillation in the presence of magnetic fields. In high-energy astrophysics, ALP-photon oscillation can...
With the WIMP parameter space slowly being ruled out by experiments on all fronts, axions have become a highly studied alternative dark matter candidate. In this talk we present a particle physics model where the pion states of a dark copy of QCD have both axion and dilaton phenomenologies. This model allows for the formation of dilute axion stars over a far larger parameter space than allowed...
Short gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are some of the brightest transients in the universe. Heavy axion-like particles (ALPs) can be produced in the hot plasma of GRB fireballs and escape, transporting energy away the from the source. When they decay outside the source, we show that the resulting photon field is too rarefied to re-thermalize, effectively preventing the re-emergence of the fireball,...
The cosmic background (CB) is defined as the isotropic diffuse radiation field with extragalactic origin found across the electromagnetic spectrum. Different astrophysical sources dominate the CB emission at different energies, such as stars in the optical or active galactic nuclei in x rays. Assuming that dark matter consists of axions or axionlike particles with masses on the order of...
In this work, we investigate the Oscillating Asymmetric Dark Matter (OADM) model as a potential solution to the core-cusp problem, a well-known discrepancy between the predictions of the ฮCDM (Lambda Cold Dark Matter) cosmological model and the observed dark matter density profiles in dwarf spheroidal galaxies. While ฮCDM simulations typically predict a steep, cusp-like increase in dark matter...
A number of studies assert that dark matter (DM) subhaloes without a baryonic counterpart and with an inner cusp always survive no matter the strength of the tidal force they undergo.
In this work, we perform a suite of numerical simulations specifically designed to analyse the evolution of the circular velocity peaks ($V_\mathrm{max}$, and its radial value $r_\mathrm{max}$) of low-mass DM...
Recent observations of a variety of ionization tracers have revealed an unexpectedly high ionization rate in the Central Molecular Zone (CMZ), that cannot be explained by ionization of cosmic rays. The current observations point to a source of particles that is very concentrated around the Galactic Center and should emit low energy ionizing particles (to avoid propagating too far away from the...
Astrophysical jets of powerful active galactic nuclei (AGN) have been recently put forward as promising probes of dark matter (DM) at the sub-GeV-mass scale. AGN launch relativistic jets that accelerate cosmic rays (CRs) to energies beyond the PeV scale. These CRs may interact with their surroundings, producing multiwavelength (MW) emission from radio to TeV ฮณ rays. If DM consists of light...
In standard $\Lambda$CDM cosmology, dark matter (DM) halos are teeming with numerous substructure, or subhalos, as a natural consequence of the way structure formation works in $\Lambda$CDM. If massive enough, both halos and subhalos host visible galaxies, while lighter ones would host no stars or gas at all and would remain dark (dark satellites). In this work, we have used Auriga - a set of...
Dwarf Spheroidal galaxies (dSphs) are suspected dark matter (DM) dense astrophysical objects within our galactic neighborhood. DSphs are otherwise faint high-energy neutrino sources which makes them ideal dark matter targets. An early IceCube dark matter search toward dSphs was performed with an incomplete detector with 59 strings and 339.8 days of livetime. This updated analysis is performed...
The nature of Dark Matter is one of the important unresolved questions in fundamental physics. It is assumed in many Beyond Standard Model theories that dark matter candidates can have weak coupling to Standard Model (SM) particles. In heavy cosmological objects, like galaxies, the Sun, or the Earth, dark matter can be gravitationally accumulated in high abundance. Then, the DM can decay or...
Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) are among the most compelling candidates for particle dark matter. These particles can be gravitationally captured by massive celestial bodies, such as the Sun, where they accumulate and, according to theoretical models, eventually self-annihilate into Standard Model particles, including neutrinos. Neutrino telescopes - large arrays of photo-sensors...
Recent multi-messenger observations suggest that high-energy neutrinos may be produced close to central black holes in active galaxies. These regions may host dark-matter (DM) spikes, where the concentration of DM particles is very high. Here we explore the contribution of the DM annihilation to the target photons for the neutrino production, proton-photon interactions, estimate the associated...
Although dark matter (DM) comprises 85% of the matter content of the Universe, its nature remains unknown. One broad class of particle DM motivated by extensions of the Standard Model (SM) is weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs). Generically, WIMPs will scatter off nuclei in large celestial bodies such as the Sun, thus becoming gravitationally bound. Subsequently, WIMPs can annihilate...
Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMP) are interesting dark matter (DM) candidates because they exhibit the usual DM properties (such as being non-relativistic and electrically neutral), while having the advantage of weakly interacting with Standard Model particles, which makes them detectable in principle. When DM decays or annihilates, neutrinos are produced. Therefore, an indirect...
In this talk, we present our study of the cosmic antiproton and antideuteron fluxes produced by the evaporation of galactic primordial black holes (PBHs). The antimatter production spectra were obtained using our modified version of the BlackHawk code, which incorporates a stateโofโtheโart Wigner function coalescence model for antideuteron formation. The propagation of these fluxes throughout...
Primordial Black Holes~(PBHs) are hypothetical black holes with a wide range of masses that formed in the early universe. As a result, they may play an important cosmological role and provide a unique probe of the early universe.
A PBH with an initial mass of approximately $10^{15}$~g is expected to explode today in a final burst of Hawking radiation. In this work, we conduct an all-sky...
FASER (the Forward Search Experiment) is a compact detector located about 480 m downstream of the ATLAS interaction point at CERNโs Large Hadron Collider (LHC). It is designed to explore new Beyond the Standard Model (BSM) physics by searching for light, weakly interacting, and long-lived particles (LLPs) produced in the far-forward region. This unique setupโshielded by approximately 100 m of...
SQM-ISS is a detector that will look for massive particles among cosmic rays from the International Space Station. Some of these candidates include strange quark matter, Q-balls, lumps of fermionic exotic compact stars, primordial black holes, mirror matter, Fermi balls and others. These compact and dense objects are expected to be much heavier than normal nuclei, to travel at speeds typical...
Magnetic monopoles are beyond standard model particles, predicted by Grand Unified Theories (GUTs) to be created during the early universe. At typical masses of the GUT-scale - above $10^{14}$ GeV - these particles would move at sub-relativistic speeds. The Rubakov-Callan effect predicts that magnetic monopoles can catalyze nucleon decays, in particular the decay of protons. This results in a...
We present the development and performance of a novel 2-inch low-background R12699 PMT for the next-generation xenon detectors. Developed through collaboration between the PandaX team and Hamamatsu Photonics K.K., this PMT exhibits low radioactivity, with approximately 0.08 mBq/PMT for $^{60}$Co and 0.06 mBq/PMT for the $^{238}$U late chain, achieving a 15-fold reduction compared to R11410 PMT...
This study presents the design of a cryogenic electronics system intended for use in liquid-xenon dark matter detectors. In conventional cryogenic experiments, analog signals are transmitted from low-temperature detectors to room-temperature electronics via coaxial cables and multiple feedthroughs. As the scale of detectors increases, the growing number of signal channels complicates...
In rare events experiments, such as those devoted to the direct search of dark matter, a precise knowledge of the environmental gamma and neutron backgrounds is crucial for the design of appropriate shieldings. The neutron component is often poorly known due to the lack of a scalable detector technology for the measurement of low-flux neutron spectra in a short time.
Thanks to their high...
The RES-NOVA project detects cosmic neutrinos (i.e., Supernovae) via coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering (CEฮฝNS) using archaeological Pb-based cryogenic detectors. The high CEฮฝNS cross-section, due to the Pb's large atomic mass, and ultra-high radiopurity of archaeological Pb enable a highly sensitive, cm-scale observatory equally sensitive to all neutrino flavors. These features are...
In the context of astroparticle physics, nuclear astrophysics, and quantum computing projects, identifying underground laboratories where cosmogenic background is suppressed is crucial.
Located approximately 500 meters from the center of Trento, Italy, the Piedicastello tunnels are covered by 100 meters of limestone rock from the Doss Trento hill. The site spans over 6,000 square meters and...
