Does the non-baryon 95% of the universe possess specific physical characteristics that can be compared to those of a gas or a fluid, and can it interact with ordinary matter in a direct way other than gravitational interaction? By using the Lorentz factor in Stokes' law as the apparent-viscosity coefficient of space, which is treated as a dark fluid with non-Newtonian and dilatant...
Developments over the last decade have pushed the search for particle dark matter (DM) to new frontiers, including the keV-scale lower mass limit for thermally-produced DM. Galactic DM at this mass is kinematically matched with the energy needed to break a Cooper pair in common superconductors (~meV). Quantum sensors that are sensitive to these broken Cooper pairs can potentially be exploited...
To continue the search for dark matter (DM) into the sub-GeV mass range, the development and characterization of new detectors with sub-eV thresholds is critical. Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors (MKIDs) offer an attractive architecture for novel microcalorimeters with the requisite energy resolution and threshold for probing DM down to the fermionic thermal relic mass limit of a few...
We use FIRE-2 zoom cosmological simulations of Milky Way size galaxy halos to calculate astrophysical J-factors for dark matter annihilation and indirect detection studies. In addition to velocity-independent (s-wave) annihilation cross sections σv, we also calculate effective J-factors for velocity-dependent models, where the annihilation cross section is either either p-wave (∝v2/c2) or...
The COSINE-100 collaboration recently released a study suggesting possible cause of the annual modulation from an analysis method adopted by the DAMA/LIBRA experiment in which the observed modulating signal could be attributed to a slowly varying time-dependent background. The DAMA/LIBRA collaboration's claim for a dark matter signal has been debated over the last two decades. However, despite...
Recent advances in gravitational wave detection have opened new doors for probing the physics of the early universe, raising the possibility of finding gravitational-wave evidence for the existence of dark matter candidates that have not yet been detected by other methods. In particular, this possibility has motivated the exploration of topological defect formation and decay associated with...
Sub-GeV DM particles could be revealed through their Scattering with electrons. The analysis of data from direct detection experiments usually requires assuming a local DM halo velocity distribution; however, in the halo-independent analysis method, properties of velocity distribution are instead inferred from the data, which allows comparing different data sets without making any assumption...
Dark Matter Radio 50L (DMRadio-50L) is a resonant, lumped-element detector searching for low-mass axion dark matter. The detector will have a toroidal superconducting magnet enclosed by a superconducting sheath connected to a high-Q tunable LC resonator. In this talk, I will outline the calibration plan the experiment will employ to determine its end-to-end sensitivity. A variety of methods...
The existence of dark matter (DM) has been well-established by repeated experiments probing various length scales. Even though DM is expected to make up 85% of the current matter content of the Universe, its nature remains unknown. One broad class of corpuscular DM motivated by Standard Model (SM) extensions is weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs). WIMPs can generically have a non-zero...
The DARWIN observatory is a proposed next-generation experiment to search for particle dark matter and other rare interactions. It will operate a 50 t liquid xenon detector, with 40 t in the time projection chamber (TPC). To inform the final detector design and technical choices, a series of technological questions must first be addressed. I will describe a full-scale demonstrator in the...
Authors:
Rustam Balafendiev, Pavel Belov, Alex Droster, Maxim Gorlach, Nolan Kowitt, Samantha Lewis, Dajie Sun, Mackenzie Wooten, Karl van Bibber
Recent theoretical work predicts the mass of the post-inflation axion to lie above 40𝜇eV (~10 GHz) [1], higher than where microwave cavity experiments can effectively reach, owing to the steeply decreasing volume of the cavity with frequency. It...
The increasingly theoretically relevant "sub-GeV" mass particle dark matter landscape requires new tools and techniques to fully investigate. In particular, the constrained kinematic space of potential interactions suggests that collective excitations like phonons may be the only signature of very low mass dark matter candidates. One promising technology to study these are qubit derived...
The Migdal Effect has seen a surge of interest in recent years, and has been leveraged to set what are in fact the strongest limits on nuclear recoils of dark matter below masses of a few GeV. While the existence of the Migdal Effect only relies on fairly basic quantum mechanics, the matrix elements involved have never been directly calibrated. I lay out the importance of measuring the Migdal...
A major hurdle in searches for sub-GeV particle-like dark matter is demonstrating sufficiently low energy detection thresholds in order to detect recoils from light dark matter particles. Many detector concepts have been proposed to achieve this goal, which often include novel detector target media or sensor technology. A universal challenge in understanding the signals from these new...
Axions are a well-motivated dark matter candidate, which currently have a wide open and accessible parameter space, with few constraints on their mass and coupling strength to photons. The DMRadio-50L experiment seeks to explore a wide portion of this axion parameter space (between 5 kHz - 5 MHz), taking advantage of lumped element high-Q resonators with optimal out-of-band sensitivity....
Targeting the DFSZ model of the axion between 30 and 200 MHz and the KSVZ model down to 10 MHz, DMRadio-m3 will operate a lumped-element LC resonator at unprecedented sensitivities. The m3 experiment uses a 4.6 T superconducting solenoidal magnet design, as opposed to the toroidal design that is intended for the DMRadio-50L search. The m3 detector is comprised of a lumped element LC resonator...
Gravitational waves with frequencies below 1 nHz are notoriously difficult to detect. With periods exceeding current experimental lifetimes, they induce slow drifts in observables rather than periodic correlations. Observables with well-known intrinsic contributions provide a means to probe this regime. In this talk, I will demonstrate the viability of using observed pulsar timing parameters...
We discuss the potential for discovery of a recently proposed dark matter WIMP which has a mass of about 70 GeV/c$^2$ and only second-order couplings to W and Z bosons. There is evidence that indirect detection may already have been achieved, since analyses of the gamma rays detected by Fermi-LAT and the antiprotons observed by AMS-02 are consistent with 70 GeV dark matter having our...
The SPLENDOR (Search for Particles of Light Dark Matter with Narrow-gap Semiconductors) experiment is a search for light dark matter via the electron-recoil interaction channel, taking advantage of novel single-crystal narrow-bandgap (order 10-100 meV) semiconductors. Synthesized within the collaboration, the properties of these designer materials imply low dark counts when operated as...
In a liquid xenon time projection chamber, traditional signal search strategy is not sensitive to light dark matter due to the limitation of detection threshold. To overcome this challenge, the PandaX collaboration has developed analyses using customized S1-S2 selections or ionized electron signal only (S2-only). In this talk, we will report the latest search results on light dark matter and...
Authors: Cosmin Ilie, Caleb Levy, Jacob Pilawa, Katherine Freese, Saiyang Zhang
The first stars in the Universe, soon to be observed with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) can be extremely powerful DM probes. If DM does not play a significant role in the formation of some of the first stars, then, zero metallicity Hydrogen burners (Population III stars) form. Conversely, for scenarios...
Authors: Joshua Ziegler and Katherine Freese
Current models of stellar evolution predict a lack of black holes in the mass range 50-140 solar masses. We explore one way that introducing dark matter to this stellar evolution could influence this mass gap. In particular, given appropriate conditions, it is possible that the addition of dark matter may offer a way to produce black holes...
Authors: Pierce Giffin and William DeRocco
Historically, dark matter searches have primarily focused on hunting for effects from two-to-two scattering. However, given that the visible universe is primarily composed of plasmas governed by collective effects, there is great potential to explore similar effects in the dark sector. Recent semi-analytic work has shown that new areas of parameter...
Authors: Cosmin Ilie, Jillian Paulin
The nature of the first stars in the universe is, of yet, an unresolved problem in cosmology. One theoretical model is supermassive dark stars (SMDS), which would be powered predominantly by dark matter annihilation. The launch of JWST has led to the discovery of many high-redshift galaxy candidates. This presents a dilemma: present cosmological...
Authors: Cosmin Ilie and Caleb Levy
One approach to understanding Dark Matter (DM) involves studying how it interacts with compact astrophysical objects. Through interactions with an object’s constituents, DM in the region around an object can become gravitationally bound inside the object (capture) and, if DM undergoes annihilation processes, can leave an observable imprint on the object....
Gravitation wave searches have been mainly focused on the nHz to kHz frequency range, corresponding to known astrophysical objects. We focus our search instead on higher frequencies which may indicate signs of in-spiraling primordial black holes, or other beyond the standard model phenomena. ABRACADABRA-10cm has had great success as a lumped-element axion experiment; using the electromagnetic...
Authors: Adam He, Rui An, Vera Gluscevic, Mikhail M. Ivanov
We explore an interacting dark matter (IDM) model that allows for a fraction of dark matter (DM) to undergo velocity-independent scattering off of baryons. In this scenario, structure on small scales is suppressed relative to the cold DM scenario. Using the effective field theory of large-scale structure, we perform the first...
Interactions between dark matter (DM) and baryons in which the cross section scales with relative particle velocity as $𝑣^{−4}$ has enjoyed a lot of attention in DM literature as a generalization of the popular millicharge model. This model has interesting astrophysical phenomenology and was previously proposed as a mechanism to cool down hydrogen at Cosmic Dawn and alter the global 21-cm...
Sterile neutrinos represent a clear extension of the Standard Model with multiple potential cosmological signatures. We numerically follow the cosmic production of sterile neutrino dark matter to constrain the mass-mixing angle parameter space, leading to a better understanding of the models which remain viable for further study in future experimental probes. In the small mixing angle regime,...
Self-interacting dark matter (SIDM) is compelling because it could solve the small-scale structure formation problems and it arises generically in new physics models with dark sectors. Using simulations of the Milky Way with moderate cross sections, we motivate velocity-dependent cross sections with large values for the cross section at the velocities relevant for dwarf halos. These cross...
Authors:Arijit Das, Christopher Hirata, Emily Koivu, Makana Silva, Gabriel Vasquez
Primordial black holes (PBHs) within the mass range 10$^{17}$ - 10$^{22}$ g are a favorable candidate for describing part of or all the dark matter in the Universe. Towards the lower end of this mass range the Hawking temperature is approximately 100 keV or higher, allowing for the creation of electron -...
Future liquid xenon direct-detection experiments, such as DARWIN, need to be larger and cleaner than those currently running. Both of these goals will certainly require advances in detector technology.
The Pancake facility, with its 3 m diameter cryostat, allows the development and testing of individual full-scale components such as new electrodes in an environment very similar to the...
We present a theory to estimate dark matter particle mass, size and other properties based on the scaling laws identified from galaxy rotation curves and N-body simulations (Illustris project etc.). The existence of energy cascade in the hierarchical formation of dark matter halos leads to a two-thirds power law for kinetic energy and a four-thirds power law for halo core density with the...
