Events Calendar
Another way to look at the Dark Matter
Tuesday November 4, 2014
| 2:00 pm
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Presenter: | Dr. Jerry Va'vra (SLAC) |
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| Series: | Nuclear, Particle, Astroparticle and Cosmology (NUPAC) Seminars | |
| Abstract: |
At present there is an effort to reconcile the results of the DAMA experiment with other Dark Matter searching experiments. If DAMA and CoGeNT experiment modulation signal is caused by the Dark Matter, it cannot be due to a moderately heavy WIMP recoiling off the Na or I nuclei, as it would be in a conflict with LXe experiments such as LUX and Xenon-100. The presence of a signal in DAMA and CoGeNT, and lack of any signal in all LXe experiments so far, can be explained by a very light WIMP (1 - few GeV/c^2) scattering off the hydrogen nuclei. Hydrogen is a contamination in the NaI(Tl) or Ge crystals. There is no hydrogen in LXe. Any signal measured in LXe will directly contradict this proposal. Since the H-contamination in NaI(Tl) detectors is at ppm level, the WIMP-proton cross-section has to be large.
If the WIMP-proton cross-section is large, the Dark Matter (DM) search could be expanded into a domain of detectors sensitive to molecular excitations. In this talk we investigate in detail di-atomic OH molecules, and water molecules. Presently, we do not have suitable low cost IR detectors to observe single photons, however some OH-molecular excitations extend to visible and UV wavelengths, and can be measured by Bialkali photocathodes. An example of a detector where such search is possible is the Ice Cube experiment and we will discuss status of the search there. In this talk we also touch other possibilities to explain the Dark Matter, namely a molecular hydrogen and so called "small hydrogen atoms". |
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| Host: | Dinesh Loomba | |
| Location: | PAIS-2540, PAIS | |
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