[The University of Texas at Austin: What starts here changes the world]
Theory Group
Theory Group Seminar , 03 May 2016


Dr. Graham Kribs, University of Oregon

The Inelastic Frontier of Dark Matter

abstract

I'll discuss the unusual characteristics of dark matter that dominantly scatters inelastically off nuclei in a direct detection experiment. If the inelasticity is of order hundreds of keV, the dominant scattering can occur through weak-strength (or larger) interactions, putting the "W" back into "WIMP". Three benchmark models - one "vanilla" supersymmetric, one dark photon, and one composite - will demonstrate the ubiquity of this scattering mechanism. The main lesson is that existing direct detection experiments could be sensitive to the inelastic frontier, but require analyzing high recoil data that has historically been ignored or discarded.




This page was last updated on 5 January 2016
Texas Cosmology Center   ♦   Physics Department   ♦   University of Texas at Austin