Events at Physics |
Events on Friday, October 25th, 2013
- Theory Seminar (High Energy/Cosmology)
- Title to be announced
- Time: 2:00 pm
- Place: 5280 Chamberlin Hall
- Speaker: Yue Zhao, Stanford University
- Theory Seminar (High Energy/Cosmology)
- Search for signatures of dark matter induced nucleon decay
- Time: 2:00 pm
- Place: 5280 Chamberlin Hall
- Speaker: Yue Zhao, Stanford University
- Abstract: If dark matter (DM) carries baryon and/or lepton number, a DM particle may annihilate with a nucleon by flipping to anti-DM. We introduce a model where DM is asymmetric and carries B and L as -1/2. It can annihilate with a nucleon to meson, lepton and anti-DM. Such signal may be observed in proton decay experiments, similar signal has been studied in detail in arXiv:1008.2399, though in a different channel. If DM is captured in the Sun, the DM induced nucleon decay could generate a large flux of neutrinos, which could be observed in neutrino experiments. Furthermore, the anti-DM particle in the final state obtains a relatively large momentum (few hundred MeV), and escape the Sun. These fast anti-DM particles could also induce interesting signals in various ground experiments.
- Physics Department Colloquium
- Multiwavelength Astronomy, the Origin of Cosmic Rays, and the HAWC Observatory
- Time: 3:30 pm
- Place: 2241 Chamberlin Hall (coffee at 4:30 pm)
- Speaker: Petra Hüntemeyer, Michigan Technological University
- Abstract: Currently, the High-Altitude Water Cherenkov or HAWC Observatory is being built at a site about a two hours drive east of Puebla, Mexico, on the Sierra Negra plateau (4100 m a.s.l.). As an all-sky instrument HAWC is particularly well suited to measure extended and large scale structures in the sky like galactic diffuse gamma-ray emission, or large and small-scale anisotropies. In addition, discoveries of other extended unidentified objects at TeV energies, for example collocated with the aEurooeFermi BubblesaEuro, are possible. In recent years, researchers have focused their attention increasingly on the combination of sky measurements in different wavebands of the electromagnetic spectrum. The construction of HAWC funded through NSF, DoE, and CONACyT is expected to be completed by Fall 2014. Data is already being collected during construction with an increasingly sensitive detector allowing for synchronous observations with instruments at other wavebands such as the Fermi Space Telescopes. I will present scientific potential - especially within the context of multiwavelength astronomy and its relevance to the cosmic-ray origin - and first results of the experiment.
- Host: Westerhoff