We analyze the potential dark matter implications of LHC events with missing transverse momentum and a W′ resonance, decaying via tb̅ to a hadronic final state. This final state remains unexamined by LHC experiments, but contains significant new discovery potential. We introduce a benchmark model for production of a W′ boson in association with dark matter, propose reconstruction and...
Axion-like particles (ALPs) are a well-motivated candidate for constituting a significant fraction of cold dark matter in the Universe. They are hypothesized to be produced in high-energy environments, such as core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe), and could undergo conversion into gamma-rays in the presence of an external magnetic field, spectrally peaking at ~60 MeV. CCSNe are often invoked as...
Self-annihilating dark matter, captured in the gravitational field of stars or other compact objects, can produce detectable fluxes and impact the evolution and observability of Population III stars. In the regime between WIMP dark matter masses ($10^{2}$ GeV) and superheavy masses ($>10^{8}$ GeV), the number of scattering events required for capture increases from of order unity to thousands...
Self-interacting dark matter (SIDM) is promising to solve or at least mitigate small-scale problems of cold dark matter. Simulations have proven to be a powerful tool to study SIDM within the astrophysical context. However, it turned out to be difficult to model all dark matter models with high fidelity. Models with a differential cross-section very pointed into the forward direction, for...
The International Axion Observatory (IAXO) is a next-generation axion helioscope aiming at a sensitivity to the axion-photon coupling down to ~10$^{-12}$ GeV$^{-1}$, ~1.5 orders of magnitude beyond current helioscopes. IAXO will probe QCD axions in the 1 meV∼1 eV mass range, where they could constitute all or part of the dark matter in the Universe, as well as a large part of parameter space...
Among messengers used in indirect searches for dark matter (DM), neutrinos are special as they are neutral, light, and seldom interact. These unique properties give them advantages in astrophysical studies: they are advantageous over cosmic rays as they are able to point back to their sources and unlike gamma rays can exit environments of large matter and radiation densities. I will present a...
Searches for light (<1 GeV) dark matter are mainly limited by detector sensitivity to low energy deposits. Accurately characterizing dark matter detector thresholds calls for calibration sources that produce well-understood low energy neutron spectra and that are convenient to use. For low energy nuclear recoils, two existing strategies to produce monoenergetic neutrons are photoneutron...
The puzzling origins of globular clusters have been greatly debated over the years. I will present a new formation channel for globular clusters, linking them to objects that formed without dark matter in the early Universe in the presence of the stream velocity. This stream velocity (Tseliakhovich & Hirata 2010) arises due to the drop in radiation pressure of baryons from matter-radiation...
We present the analysis of a sample of twenty-four galaxy-galaxy strong gravitational lens systems with a background source and deflectors from the Illustris-1 simulation. We create mock lensing observations with a data quality comparable to known samples such as the SLACS lenses, to study the degeneracy between the complex mass distribution of the lenses, subhaloes, the surface brightness...
The NA64 experiment at CERN searches for dark matter produced in both visible and invisible decays of sub-GeV vector mediators, for instance the dark photon A’. In a first data taking period from 2016-2018, A’ production from the reaction e−Z → e−ZA′ and subsequent decays A’→χχ and A’ → e+e− was studied with the help of an active dump experiment using 100 GeV/c electrons. Recently, an...
For direct detection of sub-MeV dark matter, a promising strategy is to search for individual phonon excitations in a crystal. We perform an analytic calculation of the rate for light dark matter (keV < mDM < MeV) to produce two acoustic phonons through scattering in cubic crystals such as GaAs, Ge, Si and diamond. The multiphonon rate is always smaller than the rate to produce a single...
Dark matter (DM) accounts for 85% of matter in the universe, but its particle properties still remain unknown. Several studies have focused on X-ray and $\gamma$-ray signals of DM from the Milky Way, other L* galaxies and galaxies clusters. With the help of upcoming advanced detectors, it is expected to find DM astronomical smoking gun in the future. In this project, we evaluate Galactic...
The TOF is comprised of an outer "umbrella" and nearly hermetic inner "cube" giving a combined total surface area of $\sim53$ m$^2$. Counters will be mounted to the balloon gondola using a novel carbon fiber structure. Each counter end will be read out using a silicon photomultiplier (SiPM) based analog front end. A high gain timing channel is sampled and digitized, while the low gain output...
Primordial black holes are the only dark matter candidate that does not invoke a new elementary particle that survives to the present day, primordial black holes (PBHs) have garnered a lot of attention recently. Up to now, various observations have strongly constrained most of the mass range for PBHs, leaving only small ranges where PBHs could make up a substantial fraction of the dark matter....
