LBNL Physics Division Research Progress Meetings

Julien Guy (LBNL) "The DESI Project, Construction Status and Prospects for Precise Cosmological Distance Measurements with Lyman-Alpha Forests"
2018-02-27 16:00 - 17:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | HYBRID 50A-5132 (Sessler Conference Room), https://lbnl.zoom.us/j/91782268585, 50A-5132
Abstract:
The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument is a multi-object spectrograph composed of a wide field corrector, a 5000 robotically positioned fiber system, and 10 3-arms spectrographs. The instrument is installed this year on the Mayall 4-m diameter telescope at Kitt Peak, Arizona. Operations will start next year. In 5 years, DESI will measure spectra and redshifts of more than 30 million galaxies and quasars. This catalog will be used to measure the expansion history of the Universe and the growth rate of structure in the past 10 billion years with sub-percent precision. I will present the construction status and give some insight on the Lyman-alpha BAO analysis.

Lauren Tompkins (Stanford U.) "The World’s most complicated game of Bingo: Pattern Recognition at the Energy-Intensity Frontier"
2018-02-20 16:00 - 17:00 | HYBRID 50A-5132 (Sessler Conference Room), https://lbnl.zoom.us/j/91782268585, 50A-5132
Abstract:
In 2012 the ATLAS and CMS experiments discovered the Higgs Boson, firmly establishing the Standard Model as the dominant paradigm for subatomic particle interactions. Many expected the Higgs discovery to be one of several discoveries at the energy frontier, yet five years later it remains the single addition to the subatomic particle pantheon. Meanwhile, the LHC has begun to push the boundaries of the hadron collision intensity frontier, yielding large datasets for further understanding the Standard Model as well as continuing the increasingly difficult search for new physics. I will discuss a path through the intensity frontier, focusing on a hardware based, real-time pattern recognition engine which will enable the ATLAS experiment to fully exploit the delivered data by playing the world’s most complicated game of bingo.

Haichen Wang (LBNL) Title: The Higgs boson and the top quark share the stage
2018-02-15 16:00 - 17:00 | HYBRID 50A-5132 (Sessler Conference Room), https://lbnl.zoom.us/j/91782268585, 50A-5132
Abstract:
The top quark plays an important role in the collider phenomenology of the Higgs boson, and the study of the interplay between the top quark and the Higgs boson may provide key insights to some critical questions in particle physics. A milestone in the experimental study of the top-Higgs sector of the Standard Model will be the observation of the Higgs boson production in association with top quarks (ttH), a direct evidence for the top-Higgs Yukawa coupling. With 36.1 fb-1 pp collisions at 13 TeV, the ATLAS experiment performed searches for the ttH production in several channels and found the evidence for this production. In this talk, I start with a brief overview on the experimental understanding of the Higgs boson properties and motivate the study of the top-Higgs Yukawa coupling. I then present the ATLAS ttH searches with a focus on the diphoton channel. In the end, I discuss the prospect of the ttH study and its impact on other aspects of the LHC physics program.

Zeynep Demiragli (CMS / MIT) "Search for Dark Matter: CMS Strikes Back!"
2018-02-13 16:00 - 17:00 | HYBRID 50A-5132 (Sessler Conference Room), https://lbnl.zoom.us/j/91782268585, 50A-5132
Abstract:
The experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN are at the energy frontier of particle physics, searching for answers to fundamental questions of nature. In particular, dark matter (DM) presents strong evidence for physics beyond the standard model (SM). However, there is no experimental evidence of its non-gravitational interaction with SM particles. If DM has non-gravitational interactions with the SM particles, we could be producing the DM particles in the proton-proton collisions at the LHC. While the DM particles would not produce an observable signal in the detector, they may recoil with large transverse momentum against visible particles resulting in an overall transverse momentum imbalance in the collision event. In this talk, I will review the searches for DM particles in these missing momentum final states at the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment. I will also discuss the prospects for discovering dark matter at the High Luminosity-LHC and other future experiments.

Daniel Scolnic (U. Chicago) "Measuring Dark Energy with Supernovae and Kilonovae"
2018-02-08 16:00 - 17:00 | HYBRID 50A-5132 (Sessler Conference Room), https://lbnl.zoom.us/j/91782268585, 50A-5132
ABSTRACT:
The next decade will be the golden age of cosmology with transients. In this talk, I will present new analyses of Type Ia Supernovae that mark the most precise measurement of dark energy to date. I will go over how this analysis ties together with the analysis of the local value of the Hubble constant, for which tension persists with the inferred value from the CMB – an exciting hint at possible departures from the standard cosmological model. I will then discuss the first measurements of the Hubble constant with kilonovae and gravitational waves. I will review the large amount of overlap between the issues that must be tackled for future progress using supernovae and kilonovae to measure cosmological parameters. Finally, I will discuss the roles that surveys like LSST and WFIRST will play and how we can harness the millions of transients discovered to make generation-defining cosmological measurements.

Heather Gray (LBNL) Title: The Higgs and the Quarks; Probing the Yukawa couplings of the Higgs boson
2018-02-06 16:00 - 17:00 | HYBRID 50A-5132 (Sessler Conference Room), https://lbnl.zoom.us/j/91782268585, 50A-5132
Abstract:
The discovery of the Higgs boson at the LHC in 2012 relied predominantly on studies of the bosonic decay modes. However, there is a rich structure in the Yukawa sector of the Higgs boson. Studies of the direct coupling of the Higgs boson to fermions can be used to probe the proportionality of this coupling to the fermion mass and hence the test the fermionic mass generation mechanism. I will introduce current experimental studies in the quark sector and, in particular, the recent evidence obtained at the LHC for the coupling of the Higgs to heavy quarks. I will discuss some of the important experimental challenges and highlight new ideas for the future.

Jason Bono (FNAL) Physics and Mathematics in Music
2018-02-01 16:00 - 17:00 | HYBRID 50A-5132 (Sessler Conference Room), https://lbnl.zoom.us/j/91782268585, 50A-5132
ABSTRACT:
Music is nearly universal in human culture and yet it remains
mysterious. In order to help answer some of music’s fundamental
questions, we will briefly turn to archeology and early history before
examining some of music’s salient features from a physical and
mathematical perspective. Principles rooted in physics and pure
mathematics will provide a link to intercultural qualities of musical
tone and melody to the deep role that symmetry plays in human
perception, thus shedding light on the questions that we set out to
answer. To enhance clarity and familiarity, various concepts will be
illustrated with animations and sound bites.

Alex Drlica-Wagner (FNAL) "Using Cosmic Surveys to Understand the Fundamental Nature of Dark Matter"
2018-01-30 16:00 - 17:00 | HYBRID 50A-5132 (Sessler Conference Room), https://lbnl.zoom.us/j/91782268585, 50A-5132
ABSTRACT:
The existence of dark matter is strong evidence for new physics beyond the Standard Model. While laboratory and collider searches for dark matter have advanced rapidly over the past several decades, astrophysical observations currently provide the only robust, positive, empirical measurement of dark matter. Astrophysical observables can be directly linked to the fundamental properties of dark matter, such as particle mass, self-interaction cross section, and self-annihilation rate. In this talk, I will discuss how the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) and the Dark Energy Survey (DES) have advanced our understanding of dark matter from observations of the smallest and most dark-matter-dominated galaxies. In addition, I will discuss opportunities to build a cohesive dark matter program with the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST).

John Alison (U. Chicago) "Di-Higgs Production at the LHC: Current Status and Future Prospects"
2018-01-25 16:00 - 17:00 | HYBRID 50A-5132 (Sessler Conference Room), https://lbnl.zoom.us/j/91782268585, 50A-5132
ABSTRACT:
I will discuss motivations for searching for di-Higgs production at the LHC. Recent results and projected sensitivities will be presented with emphasis on the dominant hh->4b channel.

Chihway Chang (KICP/U. Chicago) "Cosmic Surveys in the Next Decade: Mapping the Landscape of the Universe"
2018-01-23 16:00 - 17:00 | HYBRID 50A-5132 (Sessler Conference Room), https://lbnl.zoom.us/j/91782268585, 50A-5132
ABSTRACT:
Cosmology in the next decade will be driven by data. Exploiting the information one can extract from the ongoing and upcoming large surveys will give us the power to stress-test the LCDM model with unprecedented precision and open up windows for new physics. In this talk I will present some of our work in the Dark Energy Survey Collaboration and the Large Synoptics Survey Telescope Dark Energy Science Collaboration, to analyse state-of-the-art galaxy survey data as well as getting ready for the next generation of data. I will focus on topics surrounding weak lensing analyses, including cosmology from 2-point functions, generating weak lensing mass maps, and measuring the mass profiles at the outskirts of galaxy clusters.

Mengjiao Xiao (University of Maryland) "Probing the Nature of the Universe from the Chinese Underground Experiments"
2018-01-11 16:00 - 17:00 | HYBRID 50A-5132 (Sessler Conference Room), https://lbnl.zoom.us/j/91782268585, 50A-5132
Abstract:
Despite the tremendous success of the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics, it becomes more and more clear that the SM is far from complete. For example, the non-zero neutrino mass was the first solid evidence beyond the SM, but we still do not understand why neutrinos are so light, and if they are their own anti-particles. We know that the mass of the universe is dominated by dark matter, but we do not understand the nature of the dark matter. Exploring these unknowns may lead to fundamental science discoveries and deepen our understanding of the universe.
Due to their feeble interactions with normal matter, both neutrinos and dark matter are studied under low background environment in underground laboratories. This area of research is booming in China with a few underground facilities in operation or under construction. The first half of my talk will introduce the Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO), an experiment aiming to determine the neutrino mass ordering and to precisely measure oscillation parameters using a large liquid scintillator detector. I will then discuss the PandaX project, a series of experiments using dual-phase xenon for dark matter direct detection in the China Jin-Ping underground Laboratory.
Bio:
Mengjiao Xiao, Ph.D. of Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 2016, now is postdoc at University of Maryland, College Park. Working on PandaX and JUNO experiment.

Oindree Banerjee (Ohio State University) "Searching for ultra-high-energy neutrinos with the Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna "
2018-01-09 16:00 - 17:00 | HYBRID 50A-5132 (Sessler Conference Room), https://lbnl.zoom.us/j/91782268585, 50A-5132
Abstract:

Ultra-high-energy (> 10^18 eV) neutrinos remain undiscovered in this era of rapid growth in multi-messenger astronomy. These neutral and weakly-interacting particles can travel cosmic distances without attenuation and point straight back to their source, rendering them promising messengers. Detection of these elusive particles requires an enormous instrumented volume of a dielectric material such as water, ice, salt, etc. Use of radio Cherenkov method enables this at a relatively low cost. The Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna (ANITA) is a NASA-funded long-duration balloon experiment that is launched from near McMurdo Station, Antarctica, to fly over the continent in roughly circular orbits in the stratosphere for a month. ANITA looks for the radio signature from ultra-high-energy neutrino interaction in the ice below. There have been four flights of ANITA so far. I will review the principles underlying radio detection of neutrinos by ANITA, the ANITA instrument and recent developments in the hardware and electronics of ANITA. I will show results from the currently ongoing search for a diffuse flux of neutrinos in the data from the third flight of ANITA.

Bio:

I received my Bachelor’s degree in Physics from North Carolina State University. Currently, I am a 5th year graduate student in Physics at Ohio State University. For the ANITA-IV mission, I built, tested and deployed electronics which, for the first time, were able to dynamically filter anthropogenic noise at tunable frequencies. These filters helped to triple the “effective livetime” of ANITA-IV compared to ANITA-III. In analysis, I am working on new techniques for background rejection using data from the ANITA-II and ANITA-III flights.

Luise Poley (Humboldt U.) "Testbeam studies for the ATLAS ITk strip tracker"
2017-12-19 11:00 - 12:00 | HYBRID 50A-5132 (Sessler Conference Room), https://lbnl.zoom.us/j/91782268585, 50A-5132
Abstract
During Long Shutdown 3 (2024/2025) of the Large Hadron Collider, the ATLAS Inner Detector will be replaced with a new all-silicon tracker, composed of a pixel and a strip tracker. The strip tracker will consist of 18,000 detector modules, each comprised of a silicon strip sensor with readout electronics glued on to its surface.
Extensive quality assurance and quality control programmes have been established for module components as well as combined structures in order to ensure high reliability and efficiency. Among different methods to test components and modules, measurements in particle beams (testbeams) provide operating conditions similar to the LHC and thus are critical for understanding the detector performance.
This talk presents measurements performed using an electron beam at the DESY-II testbeam facility and X-ray photons at the Diamond Light Source. The results show the influence of different sensor architectures on the module performance, how testbeams can improve the understanding of material distribution in the detector and how these measurements can benefit the future ATLAS detector.
BIO:
I have studied at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, where I worked on ATLAS analysis (b-tagging efficiencies) for my bachelor thesis. I joined the ITk strip tracker project in 2012, when I started to work at DESY for my master thesis and later for my PhD. Since 2015, I have participated in all ITk testbeam activities at DESY and organised nine testbeams myself.

Michaela Queitsch-Maitland (DESY) Title: "Precision measurements of Higgs boson production and the search for dark matter in ttbar events at the LHC"
2017-12-12 16:00 - 17:00 | HYBRID 50A-5132 (Sessler Conference Room), https://lbnl.zoom.us/j/91782268585, 50A-5132
Abstract:
“Despite the huge success of the Standard Model (SM), there is overwhelming evidence for physics beyond the SM and many remaining questions, such as the nature of dark matter (DM). The current leading candidate for DM are Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs), which could be produced directly at colliders.
In this talk I will discuss complimentary methods for exploring new phenomena at the LHC with the ATLAS experiment. Firstly, through precision measurements of the Higgs boson properties, and secondly though the production of missing transverse energy in association with pairs of top quarks.
Finally, I will discuss the High Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC) project and the ATLAS inner tracker (ITk) upgrade, focusing on characterising the end-of-lifetime performance and validations of material budget estimates.”

Daniel Baxter (Northwestern University) Probing the Dark Sector: The Quest for a Background-Free Detector
2017-12-07 16:00 - 17:00 | HYBRID 50A-5132 (Sessler Conference Room), https://lbnl.zoom.us/j/91782268585, 50A-5132
Abstract:
Dark matter represents one of the most sought after discoveries in physics. Leading theories predict that extremely sensitive detectors could probe nuclear recoils from dark matter interactions. The PICO collaboration uses bubble chambers to look for the energy deposition from such an interaction. The biggest challenge in searching for dark matter is the mitigation and understanding of the numerous other sources of events that could look like dark matter, namely radioactive backgrounds. I will discuss how a long effort to understand backgrounds in the PICO bubble chambers led to the recent background-free result of PICO-60 and how discoveries made along the way might affect other rare event searches.
Bio:
Daniel Baxter is a graduating 5th year PhD student at Northwestern University and active member of the international PICO collaboration searching for dark matter using bubble chamber detectors. His research has largely focused on dark matter detector calibration, specifically understanding differences in detector response between nuclear and electron recoils. He has applied this expertise to the PICO-60 detector as run coordinator of its first physics run, which became the first background-free run of a bubble chamber at the 40L scale.

Syed haider Abidi (University of Toronto) "Measurement of Higgs Boson Properties & ITk Detector Development"
2017-11-30 16:00 - 17:00 | HYBRID 50A-5132 (Sessler Conference Room), https://lbnl.zoom.us/j/91782268585, 50A-5132
Abstract:
During Run 1 of LHC, the ATLAS and CMS collaboration firmly established the existence of a Higgs boson but detailed measurements were limited by statistical precision. With the larger Run 2 dataset, we have measured the couplings and production cross-section of the Higgs boson using the H->ZZ->4l decay channel. The results improve upon the previous ones by more than a factor of 2. For the first time, we also measure the differential cross-section within production modes and use it to place constraints on Beyond Standard Model scenarios.
ATLAS has an extensive detector upgrade plan to allow itself to collect and exploit the data delivered during HL-LHC. The upgrade of the current inner track with the all- silicon ITk is the largest project. At University of Toronto, we have lead the Canadian effort to establish ITk strip module assembly. Collaborating with Celestica, we have also established ASIC gluing and wire-bonding processes in industry. Additionally, we are probing the impact of radiation damage to estimate the end-of-life performance of the ITk.
Bio:
As I have done my undergraduate training in Engineering Science, I have been interested in bringing this prospective to physics research. As such I have been involved in many research projects, ranging from condensed matter to accelerator development.
Since 2013, I have focused on measurements of Higgs boson properties using the ATLAS detector and ITk detector development. I have lead and been involved in numerous analyses using the H->ZZ->4l channel and analyses combining results from various other decay channels. Additionally I have led the development and investigation of ITk modules at University of Toronto. In the future, I intend to continue pursuing both physics analyses and detector hardware.

Patrick Bryant (U. Chicago) "Measuring Higgs Pair Production at the LHC - Why and How?
2017-11-21 16:00 - 17:00 | HYBRID 50A-5132 (Sessler Conference Room), https://lbnl.zoom.us/j/91782268585, 50A-5132
Abstract:
As the universe cooled immediately following the Big Bang, the laws of physics underwent a dramatic phase transition. Underlying symmetries were broken and particles acquired mass as the Higgs field moved to a new ground state.
In this talk I will discuss why we should care about the precise nature of the electroweak phase transition (EWPT) and how the potential which generated the EWPT may be measured at the LHC.
Bio: Patrick received his B.S. in physics and mathematics at the University of Oregon in 2013 and has since been working towards his Ph.D. in experimental particle physics at the University of Chicago as a member of the ATLAS collaboration. He recently returned to Chicago after a year and a half at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland to write his thesis on hardware based track reconstruction and the search for Higgs pair production in the four b-jet final state.

Ulascan Sarica (John Hopkins U.) "Measurements of Mass, Width, Lifetime, and Anomalous Couplings of the H(125) Boson"
2017-11-16 16:00 - 17:00 | HYBRID 50A-5132 (Sessler Conference Room), https://lbnl.zoom.us/j/91782268585, 50A-5132
Abstract:
The discovery of the Higgs boson has completed the set of particles predicted by the Standard Model (SM). It has been established by the CMS and ATLAS Collaborations at the Large Hadron Collider that the discovered boson is consistent with J^PC=0^++. The width of this boson is also consistent with the predicted value from the SM, but the constraints using events at the resonance peak are orders of magnitude looser than the prediction. In this talk, we will be exploring techniques developed to probe small anomalous couplings of the Higgs boson. Emphasis will be given to the recent studies of Higgs-diboson (HVV) couplings from the CMS Collaboration, where information from associated production becomes even more important than the kinematics of Higgs decay products. We will also look at joint mass-width measurements using either events at the resonance peak or at the offshell tail of Higgs boson production. We will see that even small anomalous couplings show enhancement at the offshell tail and discuss briefly how joint constraints can be studied.

Bin Yu (University of California, Berkeley) "Three Principles of Data Science: Predictability, Stability, and Computability"
2017-11-09 16:00 - 17:00
ABSTRACT:
In this talk, I’d like to discuss the intertwining importance and connections of three principles of data science in the title in data-driven decisions.
Making prediction as its central task and embracing computation as its core, machine learning has enabled wide-ranging data-driven successes. Prediction is a useful way to check with reality. Good prediction implicitly assumes stability between past and future. Stability (relative to data and model perturbations) is also a minimum requirement for interpretability and reproducibility of data driven results (cf. Yu, 2013). It is closely related to uncertainty assessment. Obviously, both prediction and stability principles can not be employed without feasible computational algorithms, hence the importance of computability.
The three principles will be demonstrated in the context of two neuroscience projects and through analytical connections. In particular, the first project adds stability to predictive modeling used for reconstruction of movies from fMRI brain signlas to gain interpretability of the predictive model. The second project uses predictive transfer learning that combines
AlexNet, GoogleNet and VGG with single V4 neuron data for state-of-the-art prediction performance. It provides stable function characterization of neurons via (manifold) deep dream images from the predictive models in the difficult primate visual cortex V4. Our V4 results lend support, to a certain extent, to the resemblance of these CNNs to a primate brain.

Reserved
2017-11-07 16:00 - 17:00, 2017-11-02 16:00 - 17:00, 2017-10-31 08:00 - 17:00, 2017-10-26 08:00 - 17:00, 2017-10-24 08:00 - 17:00, 2017-10-17 08:00 - 17:00 | HYBRID 50A-5132 (Sessler Conference Room), https://lbnl.zoom.us/j/91782268585, 50A-5132

Anthony Pullen (NYU) Title: Revealing CII Emission with LSS Cross-correlations
2017-10-19 16:00 - 17:00 | HYBRID 50A-5132 (Sessler Conference Room), https://lbnl.zoom.us/j/91782268585, 50A-5132
Abstract:

In this talk, I will present our joint measurement of cosmic infrared background (CIB) and CII line emission from large scales at redshift z=2.5 using an MCMC analysis of cross-correlations of the 3 high-frequency Planck bands with both SDSS-III quasars at z=2-3.2 and SDSS-III CMASS galaxies at z=0.43-0.7. The CII emission is expected to correlate with the quasars and appear in the Planck 545 GHz band, while the other cross-correlations are assumed to mostly be attributable to CIB-LSS correlations. We report an excess emission inconsistent with the null result at 95% confidence, with an intensity value favoring the higher range of CII models. I will also forecast potential CII intensity constraints from Planck cross-correlated with DESI quasars.

Barnabas Poczos (CMU) Title: Distribution Regression and its Applications
2017-10-12 16:00 - 17:00 | HYBRID 50A-5132 (Sessler Conference Room), https://lbnl.zoom.us/j/91782268585, 50A-5132
Abstract:
The most common machine learning algorithms operate on
finite-dimensional vectorial feature representations. In
many applications, however, the natural representation of the data
consists of more complex objects,
for example functions, distributions, and sets, rather than
ﬁnite-dimensional vectors. In this talk
we will discuss machine learning algorithms that can operate directly
on these complex
objects. For this purpose, we use nonparametric statistical methods
that can consistently estimate the inner product, distance, and
certain kernel functions between distributions, sets, and other
objects. We will discuss applications in various scientific areas
including cosmology (e.g. estimating the mass of galaxy clusters,
finding anomalous galaxy clusters, estimating the cosmological
parameters of our Universe, accelerating cosmological simulations),
fluid dynamics (finding anomalous events in turbulence data),
neuroimaging, and agriculture

Simeon Bird (JHU) "Strong Absorbers in the Lyman-alpha Forest and Primordial Black Holes"
2017-10-05 16:00 - 17:00 | HYBRID 50A-5132 (Sessler Conference Room), https://lbnl.zoom.us/j/91782268585, 50A-5132
Abstract:
Strong HI absorbers are essentially the largest foreground contamination for Lyman alpha forest surveys, and so a better understanding of them is necessary for achieving the goals of future Lyman alpha cosmology surveys. I will talk about a new automated technique for generating a probabilistic catalogue of strong absorbers for the entire survey, allowing more robust cleaning of the foreground. Since no technique can entirely remove strong absorbers, I will discuss new templates for characterising their effect on the flux power spectrum. A secondary systematic is induced by interpolation error between theoretical models, and I will discuss techniques to mitigate this error with refining Gaussian Process emulators. Lastly I will discuss the interesting possibility that the surprisingly common mergers of ~30 solar mass black holes observed by LIGO could be primordial black hole dark matter, which is intriguingly (still) not convincingly ruled out.

Bertrand Echenard (Caltech) "Probing light dark matter with the LDMX experiment"
2017-09-28 16:00 - 17:00 | HYBRID 50A-5132 (Sessler Conference Room), https://lbnl.zoom.us/j/91782268585, 50A-5132
ABSTRACT:
Elucidating the nature of dark matter is one of the central challenges
in fundamental physics. Dark matter originating as a thermal relic
from the early Universe is arguably one of the most compelling
paradigm, and WIMP searches have been the main focus of past
experimental efforts. Not as extensively explored, the possibility of
light (sub-GeV) thermal dark matter could arise naturally if it is
part of a dark sector neutral under all Standard Model forces. The
“Light Dark Matter eXperiment” (LDMX) proposes to explore light
thermal dark matter using an electron fixed-target missing momentum
approach with a low current, high-repetition beam. The expected
sensitivity would surpassing by orders of magnitude the reach of any
previous or currently envisioned experiment, and decisively test many
sub-GeV thermal dark matter scenarios.

Kev Abazajian (UC, Irvine) "Candidate Signals and Stringent Constraints from Dark Matter in the Sky"
2017-09-21 16:00 - 17:00 | HYBRID 50A-5132 (Sessler Conference Room), https://lbnl.zoom.us/j/91782268585, 50A-5132
Abstract:
I will discuss analyses leading to two recent candidate detections of photons from dark matter. Specifically, these are: first, gamma rays in a continuum “bump” at a few GeV which can be due to WIMP-like dark matter annihilation in the Galactic Center; and, second, X-rays from clusters of galaxies and Andromeda consistent with monoenergetic 3.55 keV photons from dark matter decay such as that predicted from sterile neutrino dark matter. Commensurately, there are also stringent constraints on these signals. I will discuss the particle and cosmological model implications of both.
