Illuminating the dark: direct searches for cold dark matter in the Milky Way
Event details
| Date | 22.05.2017 |
| Hour | 16:15 › 17:15 |
| Speaker |
Prof. Laura Baudis, University of Zürich Bio : Laura Baudis arrived at UZH in August 2007. She is dedicating her research to answer fundamental questions in particle astrophysics and cosmology. Before moving to Zurich, she spent one year as a professor at the RWTH Aachen University, two years as an assistant professor at the University of Florida, and three years at Stanford University. She is mainly involved in direct searches for particle dark matter with liquid xenon and cryogenic (mK) Ge and Si detectors, and in the search for the neutrinoless double beta decay in 76-Ge. Prior to moving to California, she spent four years at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg. In Heidelberg, she was involved in the Heidelberg-Moscow experiment, which had the goal to measure the neutrino mass by detecting a very rare nuclear decay in 76-Ge, and in the Heidelberg Dark Matter Search experiment. |
| Location | |
| Category | Conferences - Seminars |
Cosmological observations and the dynamics of the Milky Way provide strong evidence for an invisible and dominant mass component, that so far reveals its presence only by its gravitational interaction. If the dark matter is made of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs), it can be directly detected via elastic scattering from nuclei in ultra-low background, deep-underground detectors. WIMPs arise naturally in beyond standard model theories, a popular example being the neutralino, or the lightest supersymmetric particle.
After an introduction to the direct dark matter detection method, I will review the current experimental techniques to search for these hypothetical particles. The focus will be on recent results, and on the most promising techniques for the future.
Practical information
- General public
- Free
Organizer
- Section de Physique
Contact
- Prof. Tatsuya Nakada [email protected]