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Matthew Szydagis28/07/2026, 13:00Oral presentation
The LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) experiment employs a two-phase Xe time projection chamber designed to search for rare interactions between dark matter and ordinary matter, nearly a mile underground at the Sanford Underground Research Facility, South Dakota, USA. In this talk, I will present the latest results from LZ, focused on low-mass dark matter and solar neutrinos using a 5.7 tonne-year exposure and...
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Rafa Lopez28/07/2026, 13:15Oral presentation
In this talk, we discuss new freeze-in dark matter (DM) benchmarks for the next generation of direct detection experiments. We focus on the MeV-scale fermionic dark matter coupled to the Standard Model via a new vector mediator. First, we investigate the minimal kinetic mixing dark photon of a secluded $U(1)_{D}$. Then, we study the gauge bosons of the anomaly-free $U(1)_{L_{i}-L_{j}}$ with...
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Guglielmo Papiri (Cornell University)28/07/2026, 13:30Oral presentation
We propose hydrogenated carbon structures, such as graphene and carbon nanotubes, as targets with a remarkable sensitivity to dark matter-nucleon interactions, in the mass range between the 1 MeV and 100 MeV. The ejection of a proton following the interaction with a dark matter particle is a quasi-elastic process, with an extremely small energy threshold, and a clear experimental signature....
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Zachary Bogorad (Fermilab)28/07/2026, 13:45Oral presentation
A terrestrial population of millicharged particles can arise if they constitute a subcomponent of dark matter, or if sufficiently light millicharged particles are produced in cosmic-ray air showers. Through repeated scattering with ordinary matter, these particles thermalize to terrestrial temperatures in Earthโs environment. I will show that a simple electrified shell, such as a Van de Graaff...
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So Chigusa (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)28/07/2026, 14:00Oral presentation
I will discuss new ideas for direct detection of axion dark matter by employing quantum sensing techniques with nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond. NV centers provide a well-motivated and mature quantum-sensing platform, consisting of fully controllable and measurable electron and nuclear spins. I will present our recent efforts to develop and validate quantum-sensing protocols, which we...
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Andrew Buchanan (Queen's University)28/07/2026, 14:15Oral presentation
As large-volume experiments scale up, alternative quantum detection methods are being pursued, including searches that take advantage of quantum coherence. These experiments can have sensitivities scaling quadratically with the size of the experiment, as opposed to the linear scaling of large underground experiments. I discuss the theory behind one such experiment, CATCHY, which searches for...
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Leonardo Badurina (California Institute of Technology)28/07/2026, 14:30Oral presentation
Matter-wave interferometers (MWIs) provide a uniquely quantum route to dark matter (DM) detection: DM can be detected through phases and decoherence between spatially separated wavepackets, even when energy deposition is negligible and no recoil is resolvable. I will describe an open effective field theory for MWIs, formulated using the Schwinger-Keldysh formalism, that systematically computes...
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Javier Acevedo (University of Victoria)28/07/2026, 14:45Oral presentation
Through gravitational interactions, binary systems can boost the energy of transiting dark matter (DM) particles. I will show how this effect is most efficient for double black hole binaries, which can eject DM with velocities substantially above its typical halo speed. The resulting boosted DM flux from a galactic population of these systems can extend the sensitivity of large-volume...
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Navaneetha Valsan (University of Utah)28/07/2026, 15:30Oral presentation
Direct-detection analyses typically assume the Standard Halo Model(SHM) with a MaxwellโBoltzmann distribution for the local galactic dark matter velocity, but deviations from this form and uncertainties in the velocity parameters must be quantified to reliably interpret experimental results. We carry out a systematic study of how these uncertainties propagate into single-phonon scattering...
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Anirudhan Alanthatta Madathil (University of Utah)28/07/2026, 15:45Oral presentation
Supernovae provide among the most powerful probes of weakly-coupled new particles in the MeV mass range, where laboratory experiments lose sensitivity. In this work, we constrain the mixing angle $\sin \theta$ of a Higgs mixed scalar to five orders of magnitude below the existing collider bounds ($\sin \theta \sim 10^{-9}$) using an improved supernovae cooling bound and with new decay-based...
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Christian Capanelli (McGill University)28/07/2026, 16:00Oral presentation
In this talk, I will introduce the Fuzzy Dark Sector (FDS) scenario: a rich, interacting system and candidate for dark matter. This serves as a natural extension of the single-component, non-interacting Fuzzy Dark Matter (FDM) paradigm. Concretely, I will discuss an ultra-light Abelian-Higgs model, with interacting Higgs and dark photon degrees of freedom. In cosmology, the transfer function...
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Shunichi Horigome (Tohoku University)28/07/2026, 16:15Oral presentation
Fuzzy dark matter (FDM) predicts a solitonic core within halos, in contrast to the cuspy inner profiles expected in the standard cold dark matter (CDM) model.
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We investigate differences in the inner structure of dark matter halos through the stellar kinematics of dwarf spheroidal galaxies, which place constraints on the FDM particle mass.
We analyze the parameter space using a statistical... -
Chui-Fan Kong28/07/2026, 16:30Oral presentation
We propose a novel strategy to probe feebly-interacting particles (FIPs) by exploiting the dense, confined circumstellar medium (CSM) surrounding core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe). FIPs produced in the proto-neutron star can deposit substantial visible energy into the CSM via decay prior to the shock breakout from the progenitor star. This energy injection heats and ionizes the CSM,...
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Nirmalya Brahma (McGill University)28/07/2026, 16:45Oral presentation
Some of the strongest constraints on axions and dark photons (DPs) come from their emission in astrophysical plasmas. However, many of these studies assume isotropic plasma conditions, which are rarely realized in realistic environments due to the ubiquitous presence of magnetic fields. In magnetized plasmas, the standard transverse and longitudinal photon polarization modes become mixed,...
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Riku Mizuta (TRIUMF / University of British Columbia)28/07/2026, 17:00Oral presentation
Inelastic dark matter (iDM) consists of two almost mass-degenerate Majorana states with a small mass splitting and has been widely studied for its unique phenomenology. We consider iDM with a light dark photon/lepton-specific scalar mediator which feebly couples to the Standard Model particles. iDM is produced by freeze-in: the couplings are too small to put iDM in chemical equilibrium but can...
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Natnael Debru (McGill University)28/07/2026, 17:15Oral presentation
Light, weakly coupled new particles are produced efficiently in the hot and dense interior of stars. The resulting effects on stellar evolution can have distinct observable impacts on stellar populations, leading to some of the strongest bounds on new light particles. We revisit stellar bounds on electrophilic scalars arising from the tip of the red-giant branch (TRGB) of globular clusters,...
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Marco Costa29/07/2026, 13:00
We explore the possibility that neutrinos couple to an interacting sterile sector, providing a novel portal that generalizes the heavy neutral lepton portal to a composite setting. For a low confinement scale, high-energy neutrino beams can disintegrate into collimated sprays of hidden states, referred to as dark jets. This dynamics gives rise to two characteristic signatures in high energy...
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Dr Deepak Sathyan29/07/2026, 13:15Oral presentation
We propose a novel method to probe visibly decaying dark photons at the LHC with masses of 10 MeV to 10 GeV, providing complementarity with short baseline beam dump experiments. Dark photons can be produced at the LHC through neutral meson decays, bremsstrahlung off baryons, or directly produced in association with a jet. We consider visible decays to electron or muon pairs as the signal...
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Sean Tulin (York University)29/07/2026, 13:30Oral presentation
Rare and symmetry-constrained decays of ฮท, ฮทโฒ mesons offer a flavor-conserving window into BSM physics that is complementary to other searches. Potential signatures include new light particles such as hidden photons or photon-like bosons, light Higgs bosons, or axion-like particles that mimic rare SM decays. In this talk, I will present theoretical models and motivations, as well as...
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Tao Zhou (Texas A&M University)29/07/2026, 13:45
We simulate dark-vector, V, production from electromagnetic cascades at the recently approved SHiP experiment. The cascades (initiated by photons from ฯ0 โฮณฮณ) can lead to 3-4 orders of magnitude increase of the event rate relative to using primary production alone. We provide new
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SHiP sensitivity projections for dark photons and electrophilic gauge bosons, which are significantly improved... -
Carlos Henrique de Lima (TRIUMF)29/07/2026, 14:00Oral presentation
In this talk, I present a recently proposed search strategy for GeV-scale particles that couple predominantly to light quarks at the LHC. Such models have often been assumed to be experimentally indistinguishable from QCD jets. We demonstrate that this is not the case. These particles can be perturbatively produced at the LHC and promptly decay into only a few hadrons, giving rise to jets with...
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Fabian Esser29/07/2026, 14:15Oral presentation
A SM extension with a light Axion-like Particle (ALP) in a large mass range can be parametrised in terms of a linear ALP-EFT, which couples the ALP to SM particles through momentum-dependent dimension-5 operators.
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These interactions can lead to distinctive signatures in various processes at collider experiments such as the LHC.
Couplings of ALPs to SM fermions, in particular to top quark,... -
Dr Shu-Yu Ho (Academia Sinica)29/07/2026, 14:30Oral presentation
We demonstrate that TeV-scale heavy neutral leptons (HNLs) responsible for inverse-seesaw neutrino mass generation can simultaneously fix the cosmological abundance and decay properties of dark matter (DM). The spontaneous breaking of lepton number gives rise to a pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone boson that serves as a light DM candidate, whose mass originates from a small explicit symmetry-breaking...
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Drona Vatsyayan (Carleton University)29/07/2026, 14:45Oral presentation
Strong self-interaction among the active neutrinos mediated by a neutrinophilic scalar is a well-motivated target of particle physics and cosmological probes. In this talk, I will present precision electroweak constraints on models for neutrino self-interaction, pointing out the importance of neutrino charged-current coupling correction and its impact on the Fermi constant measurements. This...
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Marios Galanis (Stanford University)29/07/2026, 15:30Oral presentation
A large ensemble of two-level systems where each is prepared in an equal superposition of ground and excited states is the quantum analogue of a classical oscillating dipole. Scattering of weakly interacting cosmic relics off such a dipole is dramatically enhanced due to collective effects analogous to Dicke superradiance, where the de-excitation and excitation rates of the ensemble scale as...
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Maximilian Volker Berbig29/07/2026, 15:45Oral presentation
We construct a ``theory of many things'' based on gauging the approximate $SU(3)_H$ lepton flavor symmetry of the Standard Model. The lepton sector parallels the quark sector as its own Higgsed QCD with $N_c = 3, N_f = 2$. From the quark sector, the DFSZ axion solves strong CP and gives rise to QCD axion DM. Meanwhile the parallel lepto-axion can bias the early-universe $\text{SU}(3)_H$...
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Giacomo Landini (LNF-INFN)29/07/2026, 16:00
QCD-like theories provide a compelling dark matter candidate in the form of dark pionsโlight particles emerging as NambuโGoldstone bosons from the spontaneous breaking of chiral symmetry. The dynamics of dark pions can induce sizeable dark matter self-interactions, potentially alleviating some tensions between simulations of collisionless cold dark matter and observations of dwarf galaxies...
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Kuldeep Deka (New York University Abu Dhabi)29/07/2026, 16:15Oral presentation
The post-inflationary reheating era plays a pivotal role in shaping the thermal history of the Universe,
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yet its dynamics remain poorly understood. In this talk, I will examine how various reheating scenarios impact dark matter (DM) production, encompassing both thermal and non-thermal origins.
Using general parametrizations for the Hubble expansion rate and the evolution of the... -
Luna Zagorac (McGill University)29/07/2026, 16:30Oral presentation
Axion-like particles have become a popular dark matter candidate in the past decade, in part due to their fascinating wave-like dynamics. This small-scale behavior is due to characteristic observable cores in ULDM called solitons, which also correspond to the ground state of the equations governing the particlesโ dynamics. Thus, one promising avenue for studying ULDM dynamics is by treating...
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Andrew Long (Rice University)29/07/2026, 16:45Oral presentation
Since the mass scale of QCD axion dark matter is not known, a diverse array of experimental techniques are required to ensure complete coverage over the space of theories. Currently coverage is lacking at meV masses, corresponding to the so-called terahertz gap. In this talk I will describe the Semiconductor-Quantum-Well Axion Radiometer Experiment (SQWARE) โ a new experimental platform for...
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Moira venegas villa29/07/2026, 17:00Oral presentation
Axion-like particles (ALPs) can form a network of cosmic strings that persists after recombination and induces birefringence in the cosmic microwave background (CMB), rotating the plane of polarization of propagating photons. In this work, we analyze a high-resolution simulation of an axion string network generated using adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) techniques. By performing ray tracing...
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Maxim Perelstein (Cornell University)29/07/2026, 17:15Oral presentation
We consider the cosmological history of a weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) coupled to a light axion-like particle (ALP) via a quadratic coupling. Although the coupling is too feeble to thermalize the ALP, coherent forward scattering between the two sectors induces temperature-dependent mass shifts that substantially modify both WIMP freeze-out and ALP misalignment dynamics, giving...
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Lillian Santos-Olmsted30/07/2026, 13:00Oral presentation
It was recently shown that standard sub-GeV dark matter candidates can be effectively probed by large neutrino observatories via annual modulation of the total photomultiplier hit rate. That work focused on the production of light by the excitation of scintillator molecules and considered the JUNO detector, surpassing limits from dedicated dark-matter detectors and reaching theoretical...
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Benjamin Lillard (Pennsylvania State University)30/07/2026, 13:15Oral presentation
Anisotropic direct detection experiments can discover dark matter even in the presence of irreducible Standard Model backgrounds, by using daily modulation to isolate the dark matter signal. Our new ab initio molecular physics package, SCarFFF, makes it possible to sift through millions of molecules to find the ones best suited for dark matter detection. What properties should we be looking...
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Hugo Schรฉrer (McGill University)30/07/2026, 15:30Oral presentation
In-medium properties of particles differ significantly from vacuum ones, due to finite temperature and density effects. For example, the photon in a plasma acquires an effective mass and can thus decay into neutrinos, a process forbidden in vacuum. Finite temperature and density effects are also crucial for accurate Beyond the Standard Model (BSM) phenomenology. Indeed, processes involving BSM...
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Afif Omar30/07/2026, 15:45Oral presentation
The first elements in the Universe were synthesized within a few minutes after the Big Bang, in the epoch known as Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN). Precise measurements from astrophysical observations, the cosmic microwave background (CMB), and nuclear reaction rates render BBN an essentially parameter-free theory, making it a powerful test of new physics. In this talk, I will show how BBN can...
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Dr Mohamad Shalaby (University of Waterloo)30/07/2026, 16:00
The classical Jeans instability states that baryonic perturbations grow only above the Jeans scale, while cold dark matter is unstable on all scales. In this talk, I will show that the relative drift between baryons and dark matter after decoupling fundamentally alters this picture.
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When the projected DM drift is subsonic, a new resonant gravitational instability โ the ShalabyโBroderick... -
Leo Kim30/07/2026, 16:15Oral presentation
Light mediators in the dark sector can give rise to dark matter self-interactions. Looking beyond minimal models of self-interacting dark matter that typically only have elastic interactions, there is growing interest in dissipative dark sectors, which can significantly modify the evolution of dark matter halos through inelastic processes. We consider an inelastic dark matter model made up by...
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Han Wu (Queen's University, McDonald Institute)30/07/2026, 16:30Oral presentation
The recent discoveries of the high-redshift quasars at $z\sim6-10.1$ present a challenge to conventional supermassive black hole (SMBH) formation scenarios: their central SMBH is too large to have grown from early stellar remnants, even under efficient super-Eddington accretion. An alternative approach is the direct collapse of primordial, dust and metal-free gas clouds into black hole seeds...
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Dr Sergey Sibiryakov (McMaster U. & Perimeter Inst.)30/07/2026, 16:45Oral presentation
We revisit the mechanism for production of primordial black holes (PBHs) via collapse of domain walls nucleated during inflation. We highlight the importance of the intrinsic domain wall asymmetry that precludes formation of light black holes โ an effect overlooked in the previous studies. As a result, the mass spectrum of PBHs produced by this mechanism gets cut at the low PBH mass end,...
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Fazlul Yasin (Carleton University Ottawa)30/07/2026, 17:00Oral presentation
Light non-thermal fermions can be produced non-perturbatively in the early universe during coherent oscillations of a scalar field. We explore fermion production in $\lambda\phi^{4}$ inflation through this mechanism and analyze the momentum spectrum of the fermions produced, which depends on a coupling parameter $q$. For $q \gtrsim 0.01$, the main contribution to the total number density comes...
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Dr Michael Fedderke (Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics)30/07/2026, 17:15Oral presentation
Compact supermassive dark-matter (DM) states act as gravitational lenses. Widely spatially separated space-based gamma-ray detectors would observe geometrical parallax of such an intervening lens with respect to cosmologically distant gamma-ray bursts (GRB). This parallax can be of order the Einstein angle of the lens, resulting in a significant differential magnification of the source as...
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James Cline (McGill University, (CA))31/07/2026, 09:00
The IceCube observations of neutrinos from two active galactic nuclei allow one to constrain the interactions of neutrinos with dark matter. The presence of a dark matter spike around the central supermassive black hole leads to limits on the scattering cross section that can exclude new regions of parameter space, depending upon the spike density profile and the energy-dependence of the...
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Maรญra Dutra (NASA Goddard)31/07/2026, 09:15
Detecting gamma-ray signals that could be due to dark matter (DM) particles would give us invaluable information about the nature of DM. In particular, gamma-ray lines could provide a way to measure the DM mass scale. The excellent energy resolution of the upcoming MeV gamma-ray telescope COSI will allow us to probe underexplored regions of the DM parameter space while being sensitive to...
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Oral presentation
Low-energy precision experiments provide unique sensitivity to feebly coupled light states that are inaccessible at high-energy colliders. In this talk, we present projected sensitivities for light Beyond the Standard Model (BSM) mediators with masses below 100 MeV at two such facilities. First, we explore the MAGIX experiment at MESA, utilizing high-intensity electron beams on a heavy...
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David Richard Curtin (University of Toronto)
I will give an overview on the status of mirror stars and their observables, including recent progress in characterizing the spectral signature of SM matter trapped in mirror stars, and recent proposals to build low-mass dark photon detectors that could detect the dark emissions of mirror stars directly.
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