Events on Thursday, February 15th, 2024
- Tabletop to Telescope: Unraveling the Mystery of Dark Matter
- Time: 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm
- Place: 5280 Chamberlin Hall
- Speaker: Tanner Trickle, Fermilab
- Abstract: Recent years have seen a dramatic expansion in ideas to search for dark matter beyond the WIMP paradigm. In this talk we'll discuss a diverse range of new approaches, starting with small-scale tabletop experiments. These experiments target dark matter particles far lighter than WIMPs using innovative ideas from condensed matter physics and quantum sensing. New calculations have transformed our understanding of how dark matter can interact with electrons and are essential for current experimental efforts. Additionally, we'll explore how collective excitations, e.g., phonons and magnons, can revolutionize the way we search for dark matter. Complementing these tabletop experiments, pulsar timing arrays are exceptionally sensitive to new physics on galactic scales. While their primary purpose is to detect stochastic gravitational wave backgrounds, we'll show how their extraordinary precision can be leveraged to hunt for both the lightest, and heaviest, dark matter candidates.
- Host: Lisa Everett