OKC colloquia

Direct dark matter detection in the Milky Way

by Laura Baudis (Zurich)

Europe/Stockholm
FB42

FB42

Description
We have strong evidence that about 80% of matter in our Universe is dark, revealing its presence only by its gravitational attraction. If the dark matter is made of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs), it can be directly detected via elastic scattering from nuclei in ultra-low background, deep underground detectors. WIMPs arise naturally in beyond standard model theories, a popular example being the neutralino, or the lightest supersymmetric particle. After a brief introduction to the direct dark matter detection method, I will review the current techniques to search for these hypothetical particles. The focus will be on recent results, and on the most promising techniques for the future.