Bulletin of the American Physical Society
APS April Meeting 2018
Volume 63, Number 4
Saturday–Tuesday, April 14–17, 2018; Columbus, Ohio
Session H09: Dark Matter Searches, Dark Forces, and Bosonic Mediators |
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Sponsoring Units: DPF Chair: Scott Hertel, UMass Amherst Room: A111 |
Sunday, April 15, 2018 10:45AM - 10:57AM |
H09.00001: Cosmogenic Backgrounds for the DarkSide Experiment Parth Singh The DarkSide-50 (DS-50) experiment is designed to directly detect weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) dark matter. Located deep underground at LNGS, 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. Cosmic muon interactions with the rock surrounding the cavern lead to neutron production which forms an important class of background for detectors searching for rare events. WIMP direct detection experiments like DS-50 must be able to distinguish a neutron recoiling with an argon nucleus from a WIMP recoil. Determining the efficiency of the DS-50 veto system to identify such events can be achieved through simulation studies, as actual data is not sufficient. This work will be described, along with simulation work for the proposed DarkSide-20K (DS-20K) experiment, which will have a fiducial mass 400 times that of DS-50. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, April 15, 2018 10:57AM - 11:09AM |
H09.00002: Background Models and Blinding Strategies in the Third Run of CDMSlite D'Ann Barker The CDMS low ionization threshold experiment (CDMSlite) is an alternative running mode of the SuperCDMS Soudan direct dark matter experiment. This mode extends its experimental reach to low mass dark matter particles ($<$2 GeV/$c^2$) while sacrificing its ability to discriminate between nuclear and electron recoil events. In the previous two runs of CDMSlite, the analysis has been background-limited and un-blind. For the third and final run of CDMSlite, the particle backgrounds have been modelled to improve sensitivity, and artificial events (`salt’) have been added into the data as a blinding scheme. We present these techniques and their application to the CDMSlite data. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, April 15, 2018 11:09AM - 11:21AM |
H09.00003: Results from the Third and Final CDMSlite Run William Page The Cryogenic Dark Matter Search low ionization threshold experiment (CDMSlite) searches for direct interactions between dark matter particles and germanium nuclei in cryogenic detectors operated in a low background environment. Neganov-Trofimov-Luke amplification is used to achieve a low energy threshold ($\sim$60 eV), which improves the experiment's sensitivity to low mass ($<$2 GeV/c$^2$) dark matter particles. Comparable energy thresholds are reached in the third CDMSlite run relative to the second run, and we present new analysis techniques designed to optimize sensitivity to low mass dark matter particles, including noise discrimination and instrumental background modeling. The improvement in dark matter cross section sensitivity from using background subtracting methods is also presented. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, April 15, 2018 11:21AM - 11:33AM |
H09.00004: Preliminary results from the DAMIC-100 Dark Matter Experiment Karthik Ramanathan The DAMIC (Dark Matter in CCDs) experiment utilizes high resistivity, scientific grade CCDs to search for particle Dark Matter. With a demonstrated combination of low electronic noise of 1.6 e$^{-}$, an ionization response threshold of 35 eV$_{ee}$, and high spatial resolution of particle interactions, the experiment is uniquely sensitive to low-mass Dark Matter candidates with masses below 10 GeV c$^{-2}$. We present here results from a dark matter search using the first few months of science run data of the current iteration of the experiment, DAMIC-100 - now operational at SNOLAB, and place preliminary WIMP-nucleon cross section limits. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, April 15, 2018 11:33AM - 11:45AM |
H09.00005: Recent advances in the search for a leptopohobic boson at GlueX Cristiano Fanelli, John Hardin, Mike Williams, Yunjie Yang A compelling dark-force scenario introduces a new U(1)$_{B}$ gauge symmetry coupling to baryon number. A search for a leptophobic boson has been performed at GlueX in its main decay channels taking advantage of the direct photoproduction mechanism. A bump hunt strategy has been extended to cover a wide unexplored region of the ($M_{B}$,$\alpha_{B}$) plane where all previous experiments could not set limits. The data collected at GlueX provided a significant contribution to this search, which also motivates other similar BSM searches at Jefferson Lab. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, April 15, 2018 11:45AM - 11:57AM |
H09.00006: An Update on the Bosonic Dark Matter Search with the MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR Jamin Rager The M$\textsc{ajorana}$ D$\textsc{emonstrator}$ is a neutrinoless double-beta decay experiment operating at the 4850' level of the Sanford Underground Research Facility that uses modular arrays of enriched, $^{76}$Ge detectors in an ultra-low background environment. The D$\textsc{emonstrator}$ has a low energy program that is capable of probing a variety of exotic keV-scale physics; it has recently produced limits on generic bosonic dark matter that come in two weakly coupling varieties, vector and pseudoscalar (axion-like). These particles would manifest as low energy peaks at their rest mass in the detector spectrum. I describe recent efforts in the M$\textsc{ajorana}$ D$\textsc{emonstrator}$'s ongoing bosonic dark matter campaign, specifically improving the limits on the relevant coupling parameters. This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Nuclear Physics, the Particle Astrophysics and Nuclear Physics Programs of the National Science Foundation, and the Sanford Underground Research Facility. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, April 15, 2018 11:57AM - 12:09PM |
H09.00007: Search for a dark matter force mediator Vardan Khachatryan, Rouven Essig, Natalia Toro, Philip Schuster, Bogdan Wojtsekhowski We present an update of the A' Experiment (APEX) at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (JLab) in Virginia, USA. APEX searches for a new gauge boson ($A{^\prime}$) with sub-GeV mass and coupling to ordinary matter of $\alpha^\prime \sim (10^{-3} - 10^{-4})\alpha$, where $\alpha$ is the fine-structure constant. Electrons with an energy of 1--2 GeV impinge upon a fixed target of tungsten to produce an $A^\prime$ via a process analogous to photon bremsstrahlung, which then decays to an $e^+e^-$ pair that is detected by the JLab Hall A High Resolution Spectrometers. A test run was held in July of 2010, covering an $A^\prime$ mass range from 175 to 250 MeV and couplings $g^\prime/e > 10^{-3}$ . A full run is approved for 30 days of beam time and will cover $m_{A^\prime} \sim 65 - 250$~MeV. We will describe the experimental plan, which was recently re-optimized. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, April 15, 2018 12:09PM - 12:21PM |
H09.00008: Search for DARK Force at BABAR Richard Kass We report on two searches for low mass states predicted in several New Physics models performed with data collected by the BaBar detector at the PEP-II electron-positron collider. The motivations and specifics of a search for a new muonic dark force as well as a search for dark photons are given in detail. Results from the searches are presented as well as upper limits on dark-sector coupling constants and implications for the g-2 anomaly. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, April 15, 2018 12:21PM - 12:33PM |
H09.00009: An Amplified Standard Model Antonio Colella The Standard Model (SM) is the gold standard but must be amplified to include the graviton, dark matter, and dark energy. Four independent theories were selectively amplified without sacrificing their integrities including: superstring, particle creation, Higgs forces, and spontaneous symmetry breaking. Amplifications of superstring theory included: 129 fundamental matter/force particles resided in Planck cubes as closed superstrings; and a super force doughnut physical singularity resided in a Planck cube, t $=$ 0. Amplifications of particle creation included: An intimate relationship existed between particle creation time and particle's temperature (e.g., W$^{\mathrm{-}}$ at 10exp-12 s and 10exp15$^{\mathrm{\thinspace }}$K); matter creation began after inflation; by end of matter creation, only 22 permanent matter/force particles remained. Amplifications of Higgs forces included: Extremely high temperatures caused spontaneous symmetry breaking, not Higgs forces; matter particles and their associated Higgs forces were one and inseparable; sum of 8 Higgs force energies of 8 permanent matter particles was dark energy; and spontaneous symmetry breaking was bidirectional. These amplifications were summarized in An Amplified Standard Model figure. [Preview Abstract] |
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