Bulletin of the American Physical Society
2018 Joint Fall Meeting of the Texas Sections of APS, AAPT and Zone 13 of the SPS
Volume 63, Number 18
Friday–Saturday, October 19–20, 2018; University of Houston, Houston, Texas
Session C05: High Energy and Particle Physics I |
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Chair: Trey Holik, Angelo State University Room: Science and Engineering Classroom (SEC) 101 |
Friday, October 19, 2018 2:25PM - 2:37PM |
C05.00001: Determining and Designing a Time Of Flight Detector for the NOvA Test Beam Experiment Eniola A Sobimpe, Will H Flanagan, Steven Block, Aidan Medcalf The NOvA neutrino oscillation experiment is undergoing a charged particle test beam effort to gain an increased understanding of the NOvA detectors. The incident beam utilizes scintillator-based time of flight detectors to make particle identification upstream of the NOvA replica detector. Emphasis was given to the rise time, transit time, and pulse area when evaluating each prototype. This talk will give an overview of the various prototypes constructed and tests employed to choose the ideal photodetectors and scintillators for the NOvA test beam time of flight system. |
Friday, October 19, 2018 2:37PM - 2:49PM |
C05.00002: Direct detection of dark matter WIMPs with cryogenic detectors like SuperCDMS, including a new kind of dark matter candidate with well-defined mass and couplings Maxwell E Throm There is increasing tension between experiment and the proposal that supersymmetry (susy) can explain dark matter. Here we survey the potential for cryogenic detectors like SuperCDMS to observe dark matter WIMPs (weakly interacting massive particles), with emphasis on both neutralinos and a new kind of dark matter candidate with well-defined mass and couplings [1]. Like the neutralino, this new candidate is charge neutral, with only weak and gravitational interactions; and it has a spin of 1/2 and an R-parity of -1, making it stable if its mass is less than that of the lowest mass superpartner. But its interactions --i.e., couplings to W and Z bosons -- are in a sense weaker than those of the neutralino, since they are either second-order or momentum-dependent. The relatively weak interactions of the present particles may then explain why dark matter particles have not yet been detected. Nevertheless, they constitute an ideal dark matter candidate in other respects. For example, since their mass is ~ 10-100 GeV and they are WIMPs, they would have been created in the early universe in about the right abundance to explain the astronomical observations. [1] Roland E. Allen and Aritra Saha, `Mod. Phys. Lett. A 32, 1730022 (2017), arXiv:1706.00882 [hep-ph]. |
(Author Not Attending)
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C05.00003: Simulations of the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS) Detector Richard Lawrence The cryogenic dark matter search (CDMS) experiment was built to discover evidence of dark matter by direct detection using highly specialized instruments. Because dark matter interactions are expected to be both rare and difficult to detect, understanding the detector's response to backgrounds and its noise are of paramount importance. CDMS is entering an era where simulations of the detector will be used to characterize its response to backgrounds and its noise and to practice the analysis techniques needed to discover a dark matter signal. This talk will describe some recent advancements towards building a powerful and reliable framework for producing simulated datasets. |
Friday, October 19, 2018 3:01PM - 3:13PM |
C05.00004: Indirect detection of dark matter WIMP annihilation by satellite experiments (Fermi-LAT or AMS-02), including a new kind of dark matter candidate with well defined mass and couplings Brian Sun Fermi-LAT, AMS-02, and other experiments have observed intriguing signals involving positrons, antiprotons, and gamma ray photons, but so far all of these can potentially be attributed to astrophysical sources rather than dark matter annihilation. I.e., there is as yet no definitive evidence of dark matter in these signals. Here we discuss the potential of these experiments for seeing an unambiguous signal of dark matter annihilation, with emphasis on both neutralinos and a new kind of dark matter candidate with well-defined mass and couplings [1]. These new particles are [1] R. E. Allen, "Saving supersymmetry and dark matter WIMPs -- a new kind of dark matter candidate with well-defined mass and couplings", Physica Scripta (in press).
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Friday, October 19, 2018 3:13PM - 3:25PM |
C05.00005: Searching for dark matter with liquid noble gas detectors (including the LZ and Xenon experiments ), and the potential for observing a new WIMP candidate below 125 GeV Reagan Thornberry Although there is as yet no confirmed evidence for detection of dark matter, many experiments are entering regimes where there is now a reasonable possibility of success. Weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) are among the leading dark matter candidates, largely because they would have been created in about the right abundance as thermal relics if their mass is ~ 100 GeV. A favorite hypothetical WIMP is the lowest-mass neutralino, a linear combination of the neutral fermionic superpartners predicted by supersymmetry. However, the tension that currently exists between experiment and simple supersymmetric models may indicate that it is desirable to consider alternative scenarios for how WIMPs can naturally arise. Here we consider a new candidate which resembles a neutralino, in that it is charge-neutral, has spin 1/2, and is made stable by having an R-parity of -1, but it is distinguished by various unusual features, including unconventional couplings to the W and Z bosons and a well-defined mass. We will discuss how either a neutralino or this new particle can be observed in 2-phase Xe and Ar direct detection experiments. A key feature is that the new particle is predicted to have a mass that is less than or equal to 125 GeV. |
Friday, October 19, 2018 3:25PM - 3:37PM |
C05.00006: Potential explanation of why both dark matter WIMPs and supersymmetry have so far not been observed, and prospects for observing a new dark matter candidate at the LHC or in other collider experiments Gentill Abdulla In the words of two recent papers, "Supersymmetric models of particle physics have been under assault from both collider search experiments and direct and indirect dark matter detection experiments'' [1] and "With the advent of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, and a new generation of astroparticle experiments, the moment of truth has come for WIMPs [weakly interacting massive particles]: either we will discover them in the next five to ten years, or we will witness their inevitable decline.'' Here we will consider the potential of the CMS and ATLAS experiments at the LHC, and proposed future collider experiments, for discovering either the neutralinos of supersymmetry or a newly proposed kind of dark matter candidate. The recently proposed particle has weaker couplings to W and Z bosons, and therefore lower cross sections for production, than the neutralino. In addition, its presence permits supersymmetric partners to have masses at higher energy scales. The existence of the new particle would then help to explain why both dark matter WIMPs and supersymmetry have so far eluded detection. [1] Howard Baer, Vernon Barger, Dibyashree Sengupta, and Xerxes Tata, arXiv:1803.11210 [hep-ph] [2] Gianfranco Bertone, Nature 68, 389 (2010), arXiv:1011.3532 [astro-ph.CO]. |
Friday, October 19, 2018 3:37PM - 3:49PM |
C05.00007: Detect Supernova Neutrinos with DarkSide-20k Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber Ziping Ye Core collapse supernovae are among the most violent and luminous events in the universe. Their energy is derived from the gravitational collapse of the stellar core, and is emitted away through neutrinos, gravitational waves, explosions and photons. Although physicists and astrophysicists devote great efforts to the study of core collapse supernova, its mechanism remains mysterious, making the next detection of core collapse supernova – particularly through neutrinos – of great scientific interest and importance. We report here that the DarkSide-20k liquid argon time projection chamber ( LAr TPC ) can play an important and unique role in such observations. The ~ 39 tonne active LAr mass TPC of DarkSide-20k can detect about 220 neutrino events from a typical core collapse supernova at a distance of 10 kpc, via the channel of coherent elastic neutrino nucleus scattering ( CEvNS ) that is equally sensitive to all types of active neutrinos. These neutrino events would enable us to extract invaluable information of the supernova and to study fundamental properties of neutrinos, which includes measuring the luminosity and spectrum of neutrinos, observing the neutronization burst, and probing the absolute mass and mass hierarchy of neutrinos. |
Friday, October 19, 2018 3:49PM - 4:01PM |
C05.00008: A search for axions with the DarkSide-50 detector Parth N Singh The DarkSide-50 (DS-50) experiment is designed to directly detect weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) dark matter. Located deep underground at the Gran Sasso National Underground Laboratory in Italy, the heart of the detector system is a dual phase liquid argon time projection chamber. It is nested inside a liquid scintillator veto, which is further placed inside a water Cherenkov detector, both to suppress and identify background. While WIMPs are one of the most well motivated candidates for particle dark matter, another equally well motivated candidate is the axion. DS-50 has been utilized to search for solar axions via their hypothesized coupling to electrons. This work describes one such study to constrain the coupling constant (gAe) which is used to determine the probability of interaction between an axion and an electron. |
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