High Energy Physics Seminar

rescheduled from Feb 5 2024

Organic scintillators are a promising avenue for the direct detection of sub-GeV dark matter (DM). With eV-scale excitation energies that rival the sensitivity of semiconductor targets, they can be produced in bulk and purified relatively inexpensively. A low-background kilogram-size scintillator target could achieve world-leading sensitivity to sub-GeV dark matter. Crystal scintillators also provide a new capability: the dark matter scattering rate depends on the orientation of the crystal, which varies with the Earth's rotation over the course of a sidereal day (23.93 hours). The discovery of such a signal would be a clear sign of new physics. In this talk I also discuss some theoretical advances that drastically streamline the DM rate calculation, and the near-term prospects for building a prototype experiment.

The talk is in 469 Lauritsen.

Contact theoryinfo@caltech.edu for Zoom information