Nuclear, Particle, Astroparticle and Cosmology (NUPAC) Seminars
Searching for dark matter at the neutrino detection limit with a crystalline/vapor xenon TPC
Presented by Dr. Peter Sorensen (Lawrence Berkeley National Lab)
Hypothetical dark matter particles comprise over 1/4 of the mass in the universe, yet they have only been detected gravitationally. For over three decades, experiments aimed at directly detecting their interactions with ordinary matter have returned limits on the hypothetical mass and cross section with quarks. Recent progress has been lead by multi-tonne liquid/vapor xenon TPCs such as LZ. These instruments will eventually come within an order of magnitude of the neutrino detection limit, which is due to an irreducible flux of extra-terrestrial neutrinos. In order to surmount that limit, new detectors capable of resolving the direction of the incident particle will be required. But in the near-term, a significant amount of time and money is proposed to be spent on an even larger liquid/vapor xenon TPC, a so-called "G3" instrument, which would attain the neutrino detection limit. In this talk, I will describe R&D on a novel crystalline/vapor TPC, which could potentially accomplish the same feat using an existing instrument, for a fraction of the cost.
2:00 pm, Tuesday, April 18, 2023
PAIS-3205, PAIS
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