Invited Seminars

The Search for Dark Matter Particles

Name: The Search for Dark Matter Particles
Start: 2013-10-18T11:00:00+02:00
End: 2013-10-18T12:00:00+02:00
Location: Universe

by Dr Patrick Decowski (Nikhef and GRAPPA / University of Amsterdam)

Friday 18 Oct 2013, 11:00 → 12:00 Europe/Brussels

1G003 (Universe)

1G003

Universe

Description

There is strong cosmological and astrophysical evidence that more than 85% of the matter in the universe is composed of non-luminous --dark-- matter. Dark matter likely consists of non-baryonic and non-relativistic particles. Of the many candidate particles, Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs), arising in extensions to the Standard Model, are particularly well-motivated. One method to detect WIMPs is to measure the nuclear recoils produced in their rare elastic collisions with ordinary matter, with predicted interaction rates between ∼1 evt/kg/yr and ∼1 evt/1000 kg/yr. Experiments based on noble liquids offer the potential to meet this sensitivity goal, with a combination of large target mass and excellent background rejection at reasonable cost. I will introduce the dark matter problem and explore dark matter candidates and their detection. I will then discuss the status of current direct detection dark matter experiments, focussing on the results from the running XENON100 experiment and finish with an outlook of the XENON1T experiment, now under construction.