Conveners
Session 14: Dark Matter Detection: New Proposals
- Reina Maruyama
Right-handed or sterile neutrinos in the keV mass range have been proposed as an explanation of the galactic dark matter. Although direct detection of these is not feasible at the present time, the existence of such neutrinos could be demonstrated in the laboratory as rare events in atomic K-capture, emitting a neutrino together with atomic recoil, the K-vacancy then filled from a higher...
NEWS-G (New Experiments With Spheres-Gas) is a direct dark matter detection experiment using Spherical Proportional Counters (SPCs). It uses light noble gases to search for Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) down to the sub-GeV/c$^2$ mass region. The NEWS-G project builds on the experience gathered with the SEDINE detector, a 60cm SPC which has been operating for several years at...
We study novel scenarios where thermal dark matter (DM) can be efficiently captured in the Sun and annihilate into boosted dark matter. We study scenarios which can yield viable thermal relic DM with masses O(1)-O(100) GeV. Taking advantage of the energetic deposits that arise when the boosted DM scatters off matter, we propose a detection strategy which uses large volume neutrino detectors....
The MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR is currently searching for neutrinoless double-beta decays in germanium-76 with the aim of demonstrating the feasibility to deploy a tonne-scale experiment in a phased and modular fashion. It consists of two modular arrays of natural and $^{76}$Ge-enriched germanium detectors totaling 44.1 kg, of which 29.7 kg is enriched, operating at the 4850' level of the Sanford...
The Heavy Photon Search (HPS) experiment at Jefferson Lab is searching for a new U(1) vector boson ("heavy photon", "dark photon" or A') in the mass range of 20-500 MeV/c2. An A' in this mass range is theoretically favorable and may also mediate dark matter interactions. The A' couples to the ordinary photon through kinetic mixing, which induces its coupling to electric charge. Since heavy...