Bulletin of the American Physical Society
APS April Meeting 2018
Volume 63, Number 4
Saturday–Tuesday, April 14–17, 2018; Columbus, Ohio
Session B02: New Results and Challenges in WIMP Direct DetectionInvited Prize/Award
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Sponsoring Units: DPF Chair: Priscilla Cushman, University of Minnesota Room: A112-113 |
Saturday, April 14, 2018 10:45AM - 11:21AM |
B02.00001: Henry Primakoff Award for Early-Career Particle Physics Talk: Tiny Bubbles in the Mine: Dark Matter Detection via Bubble Chamber Invited Speaker: Eric Dahl Bubble chambers play a unique role in the hunt for dark matter, with both backgrounds and sensitivity that are complementary to the rest of the WIMP direct detection field. This complementarity is critical to maximize the community’s chances for a dark matter discovery and will be the key to understanding any future WIMP signal. The PICO Collaboration’s recent success (including the first ever zero-background result from a bubble chamber dark matter detector) has opened the door for continued exploration with this technique. I will review the PICO program, showing final results from the PICO-60 experiment at SNOLAB, backgrounds discovered and overcome along the way, and the road forward with PICO-500. I will also describe progress on scintillating noble-liquid bubble chambers, with particular emphasis on the background discrimination and low-threshold (sub-keV) performance of this new hybrid technology. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, April 14, 2018 11:21AM - 11:57AM |
B02.00002: New Results from the XENON1T Dark Matter Experiment Invited Speaker: Elena Aprile Astrophysical observations at all scales provide indisputable evidence for the existence of an invisible and dominant mass component in the observable universe. The nature of this dark matter remains one of the greatest challenges of modern physics. The leading hypothesis is that dark matter comprises new elementary particles, spanning a vast range of masses and interaction cross-sections with normal matter. A well-motivated class of candidates are weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs). One way to search for WIMPs is through their scattering off atomic nuclei in low background detectors placed deep underground. XENON1T is the current experiment of the XENON dark matter search program based on dual-phase (liquid-gas) xenon time projection chambers (TPCs). The XENON1T detector, based in the Gran Sasso Laboratory in Italy, is the first multi-tonne scale TPC containing a total of 3.2 tonne of liquid xenon of which 2 tonne are active. This talk will describe the data analysis and report the latest result approaching a tonne-year exposure with an unprecedented low background. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, April 14, 2018 11:57AM - 12:33PM |
B02.00003: Backgrounds in WIMP direct detection dark matter experiments Invited Speaker: John Orrell Over the last 30 years, the progress and sensitivity reach in searching for direct detection of WIMP-like dark matter particle candidates has improved over 10 orders of magnitude in WIMP-nucleon interaction strength. Direct detection dark matter experiments derive their sensitivity from a combination of total target exposure, detector performance and design, and backgrounds present in the search data sets. Experiments have grown in physical size to increase the total target exposure, a multiplicative combination of target mass and duration of exposure time. Experimental ingenuity has resulted in a variety of methods of detection to gain sensitivity to WIMP-like dark matter scattering signatures and suppress confounding background-induced signals. However, backgrounds are insidious to a degree as they are often difficult to fully predict in advance of any step forward in experimental scale and detector design. This presentation will provide a short history of identifying and overcoming backgrounds in the search for direct detection of WIMP-like dark matter. The goal is not to highlight foibles, but instead attempt to gather some grains of wisdom as the community looks toward yet larger and more ambitious future searches. [Preview Abstract] |
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