Events

Physics Department Colloquia

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Events During the Week of February 14th through February 21st, 2016

Monday, February 15th, 2016

No events scheduled

Tuesday, February 16th, 2016

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Wednesday, February 17th, 2016

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Thursday, February 18th, 2016

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Friday, February 19th, 2016

Searching for Dark Matter with Superconducting Quantum Interference Devices
Time: 3:30 pm - 4:30 pm
Place: 2241 Chamberlin Hall
Speaker: Kent Irwin, Stanford/SLAC
Abstract: For several decades, Superconducting Quantum Interference Devices (SQUIDs) have played an important role in searching for the mysterious dark matter that makes up about 85% of the matter in the universe. SQUIDs have been used in both direct searches for dark matter and in CMB experiments used to constrain the dark matter annihilation cross section. I describe the historical role that SQUIDs have played in direct-detection WIMP experiments, CMB dark-matter detection experiments, and more recently in searches for pseudoscalar axion dark matter. I then describe an experiment that we are now constructing to search for ultralight vector-boson dark matter ("hidden photons") with a lumped-element resonator, essentially a radio for dark matter detection. In its ultimate implementation, this experimental campaign will ultimately exclude or detect hidden-photon dark matter over six orders of magnitude in coupling - down to mixing angles of 10^-17 - and nine orders of magnitude in mass (from 100 Hz to 700 GHz). I describe the design of this experiment and challenges to achieving its ultimate science reach.
Host: Kam Arnold
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