4D Seminar: Harikrishnan Ramani (Stanford) “Exothermic Detectors for Dark Matter”

Seminar Organizer


Event Details


Abstract:
Well motivated models of dark matter such as inelastic dark matter and
strongly interacting dark matter and other dark relics of stable
particles are notoriously difficult to detect in direct detection
experiments. This is due to their inability to impart large enough
recoil energy in traditional methods of direct detection. In this
talk, I propose a new paradigm for direct detection: supplying energy
from the detector onto dark matter rather than vice-versa. I discuss
two concrete implementations. First, nuclear isomer batteries: long
lived nuclear states with trapped energy. This energy can be carried
away by dark matter through a scattering event which can be detected.
Second, particle accelerators operating without standard model
projectiles can accelerate ambient dark matter that carries a small
electric charge to higher energies, aiding subsequent detection. The
two methods are sensitive to a plethora of as-yet undetectable dark
matter models as well as to relic populations of stable particles
inaccessible even at colliders opening up a novel discovery avenue.