Phenomenology 2025 Symposium

New Directions in Dark Matter Detection

19 May 2025, 18:15

15m

David Lawrence Hall 120, University of Pittsburgh

Dark Matter Theory and Detection Dark Matter

Speaker

Ben Lillard (University of Oregon)

Description

Experiments with directional sensitivity are ideal for discovering a dark matter signal even in the presence of irreducible backgrounds. Crystalline trans-stilbene ($C_{14}{H}_{14}$) is an excellent first example, with O(10%) amplitudes in its daily modulation signals. In this talk, I present a simple, universal measure for quantifying the statistical power of a directionally sensitive counting experiment, to guide the search for target materials that are even more effective than trans-stilbene. I also provide an update on the multi-gram-scale prototype experiment currently being assembled at Fermilab.