INSP - Sorbonne Université - 4 place Jussieu - 75005 Paris - Barre 22-23, 3e étage, salle 317
Claudio Giganti - LPNHE
Abstract
Gravitational effects that cannot be explained by visible matter are well documented, though their source remains deeply mysterious. One hypothesis about the nature of the so-called « dark matter », motivated by considerations in elementary particle physics, is that it consists of as-yet undiscovered elementary Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs). WIMPs make up the dark matter halo that pervades our galaxy, and their motion should result in WIMP-nucleus elastic collisions of sufficient energy to be detected directly by a sensitive detector on Earth.
After a general introduction on the dark matter and the different detection techniques, we will discuss the recent results of the DarkSide-50 experiment, that uses Liquid Argon as Dark Matter target, and set the most stringent limits on the WIMP-nucleus cross-section for WIMP masses below 6 GeV/c2.
The next steps of the DarkSide program, featuring a 20 ton detector under construction and a future 300 ton detector will also be discussed in this seminar.