Session Q02: Direct Detection of Dark Matter

Live

Liquid noble detectors based on xenon and argon have provided the most competitive searches for WIMP dark matter with masses above a few GeV, having probed orders of magnitude in cross section over the past decades. With no direct evidence for dark matter, larger detectors are under construction and in design that can reach the neutrino floor, where coherent neutrino scattering will pose an irreducible background for the current technology. Within the next generation of experiments, WIMP cross sections down to the neutrino floor will be reached, potentially providing a dark matter discovery. Results from the most recent experiments, XENON1T, LUX, PANDAX, DEAP, and DarkSide50, will be presented, demonstrating the state of the art of these searches. The upcoming experiments, XENONnT and LZ will also be highlighted, including their discovery potentials. Finally, the prospects of generation 3 detectors based on xenon and argon will be presented, including the community-wide plan to reach the neutrino floor in the race to detect dark matter.   

Live

The search for dark matter has continued to evolve as new detector technologies and capabilities have been proposed and demonstrated, and as theory has focused more attention on dark matter models with dark matter masses on the order of a GeV and below. Results using both nuclear recoils and electron recoils from current experiments including CRESST, DAMIC, EDELWEISS, SENSEI, and SuperCDMS will be presented that place strong constraints on dark matter models with masses from a few GeV all the way down to the eV scales. In the next few years the next generation of experiments will come online increasing the sensitivity in these mass ranges by orders of magnitude. Proposals for new materials and techniques promise more reach and a robust future program of search and discovery in this mass range.   

Live

The axion is a popular dark matter candidate. It is distinguished by its very small mass, which causes it to behave more as a wave than as a particle. Within the Standard Model, axions arise from a simple extension, the addition of the Peccei-Quinn Symmetry to solve the strong CP problem. Similar particles, axion like particles (ALPs) arise from many higher-order theories. The wave-like nature of the axions and ALPs leads to experiments that are often fundamentally different than standard particle physics experiments and demand techniques that push the bounds of what is possible to measure. In this talk, I will review both axion and ALP physics and cosmology and then present an overview of the world-leading searches and the many new efforts that are coming online.