Speaker
Description
This presentation will show a new analysis of bubble chamber dark matter detectors which could be used to discover composite dark matter. A bubble chamber contains a volume of superheated fluid which nucleates a bubble when enough energy is deposited in the fluid. Traditional analysis assumes that a bubble is nucleated from a single, high-energy interaction with a dark matter particle. Composite dark matter is a class of dark matter models that contain binding forces which clump dark matter particles together, similar to nuclei in atoms. If the composite binding energy is small, the composite is "loosely bound" and the constituents can individually interact with nuclei in a detector. In this scenario, weakly interacting constituents can collectively deposit a large amount of energy in a small region of a detector from a composite passing through. Bubble chambers offer a unique sensitivity to such an effect due to the macroscopic nature of bubble nucleation, as opposed to exclusive single-event discrimination. Performing a novel analysis on bubble chamber sensitivity to loosely bound composites allows for probing of weaker dark matter interaction strengths and lighter constituent masses using existing experiments.
| 24sf4@queensu.ca | |
| Affiliation | Queen's University |
| Research Theme | Dark Matter |