Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• Testing the mean field theory of scalar field dark matter

  Andrew Eberhardt, Alvaro Zamora, Michael Kopp, Tom Abel

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 12, 058 (2023) · published 5 July 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Scalar field dark matter offers an interesting alternative to the traditional WIMP dark matter picture. Astrophysical and cosmological simulations are useful to constraining the mass of the dark matter particle in this model. This is particularly true at low mass where the wavelike nature of the dark matter particle manifests on astrophysical scales. These simulations typical use a classical field approximation. In this work, we look at extending these simulations to include quantum corrections. We look into both the ways in which large corrections impact the predictions of scalar field dark matter, and the timescales on which these corrections grow large. Corrections tend to lessen density fluctuations and increase the effect of "quantum pressure". During collapse, these corrections grow exponentially, quantum corrections would become important in about $\sim 30$ dynamical times. This implies that the predictions of classical field simulations may differ from those with quantum corrections for systems with short dynamical times.

  1 citation

• Improved treatment of dark matter capture in compact stars

  Sandra Robles

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 12, 057 (2023) · published 5 July 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Compact stellar objects are promising cosmic laboratories to test the nature of dark matter (DM). DM captured by the strong gravitational field of these stellar remnants transfers kinetic energy to the star during the collision. This can have various effects such as anomalous heating of old compact stars. The proper calculation of the DM capture rate is key to derive bounds on DM interactions in any scenario involving DM accretion in a star. We improve former calculations, which rely on approximations, for both white dwarfs (WDs) and neutron stars (NSs). We account for the stellar structure, gravitational focusing, relativistic kinematics, Pauli blocking, realistic form factors, and strong interactions (NSs). Considering DM capture by scattering off either ions or degenerate electrons in WDs, we show that old WDs in DM-rich environments could probe the elusive sub-GeV mass regime for both DM-nucleon and DM-electron scattering. In NSs, DM can be captured via collisions with strongly interacting baryons or relativistic leptons. We project the NS sensitivity to DM-nucleon and DM-lepton scattering cross sections which greatly exceeds that of direct detection experiments, especially for low mass DM.

  2 citations

• Mergers as a probe of particle dark matter

  Anupam Ray

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 12, 056 (2023) · published 5 July 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Black holes below Chandrasekhar mass limit (1.4 $M_{\odot}$) can not be produced via any standard stellar evolution. Recently, gravitational wave experiments have also discovered unusually low mass black holes whose origin is yet to be known. We propose a simple yet novel formation mechanism of such low mass black holes. Non-annihilating particle dark matter, owing to their interaction with stellar nuclei, can gradually accumulate inside compact stars, and eventually swallows them to low mass black holes, ordinarily impermissible by the Chandrasekhar limit. We point out several avenues to test this proposal, concentrating on the cosmic evolution of the binary merger rates.

• Attenuation of cosmic-ray up-scattered dark matter

  Helena Kolesova

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 12, 055 (2023) · published 5 July 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  GeV-scale dark matter particles with strong coupling to baryons evade the standard direct detection limits as they are efficiently stopped in the overburden and, consequently, are not able to reach the underground detectors. On the other hand, it has been shown that it is possible to probe this parameter space taking into account the flux of dark matter particles boosted by interactions with cosmic rays. We revisit these bounds paying particular attention to interactions of the relativistic dark matter particles in the Earth's crust. The effects of nuclear form factors, inelastic scattering and extra dependence of the cross section on transferred momentum (e.g. due to presence of light mediators) are studied and are found to be crucial for answering the question as to whether the window for GeV-scale strongly interacting dark matter is closed or not.

  1 citation

• Recent progresses on BSM and dark matter searches with CUORE

  Antonio Branca on behalf of the CUORE Collaboration

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 12, 054 (2023) · published 5 July 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events (CUORE) is the first bolometric $0\nu\beta\beta$ experiment to reach the one-tonne mass scale. The detector, located underground at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso in Italy, consists of 988 TeO$_2$ crystals arranged in a compact cylindrical structure of 19 towers, operating at a base temperature of about 10 mK. After beginning its first physics data run in 2017, CUORE has since collected the largest amount of data ever acquired with a solid state detector and provided the most sensitive measurement of $0\nu\beta\beta$ decay in $^{130}$Te ever conducted. The large exposure, sharp energy resolution, segmented structure and radio-pure environment make CUORE an ideal instrument for a wide array of searches for rare events and symmetry violations. New searches for low mass dark matter, solar axions, CPT and Lorenz violations, and refined measurements of the $2\nu\beta\beta$ spectrum in CUORE have the potential to provide new insight and constraints on extensions to the standard model complementary to other particle physics searches. In this contribution, the recent progress on BSM and dark matter searches in CUORE are discussed.

• Exploring coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering of reactor neutrinos with the NUCLEUS experiment

  C. Goupy, H. Abele, G. Angloher, A. Bento, L. Canonica, F. Cappella, L. Cardani, N. Casali, R. Cerulli, I. Colantoni, A. Cruciani, G. del Castello, M. del Gallo Roccagiovine, A. Doblhammer, S. Dorer, A. Erhart, M. Friendl, A. Garai, V. M. Ghete, D. Hauff, F. Jeanneau, E. Jericha, M. Kaznacheeva, A. Kinast, H. Kluck, A. Langenkämper, T. Lasserre, D. Lhuillier, M. Mancuso, B. Mauri, A. Mazzolari, E. Mazzucato, H. Neyrial, C. Nones, L. Oberauer, T. Ortmann, L. Pattavina, L. Peters, F. Petricca, W. Potzel, F. Pröbst, F. Pucci, F. Riendl, R. Rogly, M. Romagnoni, J. Rothe, N. Schermer, J. Schieck, S. Schönert, C. Schwertner, L. Scola, G. Soum Sidikov, L. Stodolsky, R. Strauss, M. Tamisari, C. Tomei, M. Vignati, M. Vivier, V. Wagner, A. Wex (The NUCLEUS collaboration)

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 12, 053 (2023) · published 5 July 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The NUCLEUS experiment aims to perform a high-precision measurement of Coherent Elastic Neutrino-Nucleus Scattering (CEvNS) at the EdF Chooz B nuclear power plant in France. CEvNS is a unique process to study neutrino properties and to search for physics beyond the Standard Model. The study of CEvNS is also important for light Dark-Matter searches. It could be a possible irreducible background for high-sensitivity Dark-Matter experiments. NUCLEUS is an experiment under construction based on ultra-low threshold ($\sim$20 eV$_{nr}$) cryogenic calorimeters, operated at tens-of-mK temperatures.

  1 citation

• Ruling out QCD phase transition as a PBH origin of LIGO/Virgo events

  Joaquim Iguaz Juan

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 12, 052 (2023) · published 5 July 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The best-motivated scenario for a sizable primordial black hole (PBH) contribution to the LIGO/Virgo binary black hole mergers invokes the QCD phase transition, which naturally enhances the probability to form PBH with masses of stellar scale. We reconsider the expected mass function assuming a CMB-like primordial spectrum and associated not only to the QCD phase transition proper, but also the $e^{+}e^{-}$ annihilation process, and analyze the constraints on this scenario from a number of observations. We find that the scenario is not viable, unless an ad hoc mass evolution for the PBH mass function and a cutoff in power-spectrum very close to the QCD scale are introduced by hand.

• The scattering and neutrino detector at the LHC

  Giovanni De Lellis

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 12, 051 (2023) · published 5 July 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  SND@LHC, Scattering and Neutrino Detector at the LHC, is a compact experiment designed to perform measurements with neutrinos produced at the LHC in the unexplored pseudo-rapidity region of 7.2 < $\eta$ < 8.4, complementary to all the other experiments at the LHC. The experiment was approved in March 2021. It was constructed in about one year and it is now taking data during the Run 3 of the LHC. In this paper we review the detector concept, the physics case and the status of the data taking.

• Dark sector studies with the PADME experiment

  Anna Paola Caricato, Maurizio Martino, Isabella Oceano, Federica Oliva, Stefania Spagnolo, Gabriele Chiodini, Fabio Bossi, Riccardo De Sangro, Claudio Di Giulio, Danilo Domenici, Giuseppe Finocchiaro, Luca Gennaro Foggetta, Marco Garattini, Andrea Ghigo, Federica Giacchino, Paola Gianotti, Tommaso Spadaro, Eleuterio Spiriti, Clara Taruggi, Elisabetta Vilucchi, Venelin Kozhuharov, Simeon Ivanov, Sevtoslav Ivanov, Radoslav Simeonov, Georgi Georgiev, Fabio Ferrarotto, Emanuele Leonardi, Paolo Valente, Elizabeth Long, Giovanni Organtini, Gabriele Piperno, Mauro Raggi, Salvatore Fiore, Paolo Branchini, Diego Tagnani, Vittoria Capirossi, Federico Pinna, Andre Frankenthal

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 12, 050 (2023) · published 4 July 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The Positron Annihilation to Dark Matter Experiment (PADME) uses the positron beam of the DA$\Phi$NE Beam-Test Facility, at the Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati (LNF) to search for a Dark Photon $A'$. The search technique studies the missing mass spectrum of single-photon final states in $e^+e^-\rightarrow A'\gamma$ annihilation in a positron-on-thin-target experiment. This approach facilitates searches for new particles such as long lived Axion-Like-Particles, protophobic X bosons and Dark Higgs. This talk illustrated the scientific program of the experiment and its first physics results. In particular, the measurement of the cross-section of the SM process $e^+e^-\rightarrow \gamma\gamma$ at $\sqrt{s}$=21 MeV was shown.

• Improved Galactic diffuse emission model strengthens the case for a Millisecond Pulsar explanation of the Fermi GeV excess

  Oscar Macias, Martin Pohl, Chris Gordon, Phaedra Coleman

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 12, 049 (2023) · published 4 July 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  After more than a decade since its discovery, the Galactic center gamma-ray excess - discovered with the Fermi Large Area Telescope - remains puzzling. While the spectrum of the signal can be explained by either dark matter or an unresolved population of millisecond pulsars, the spatial morphology of this excess seems to hold the key to separate the two theories. In this contribution, we present the results of a recent study in which we use bleeding edge models for interstellar gas, inverse Compton emission, and stellar mass models to reanalyze the Galactic center excess. We find that the spatial morphology of the excess is highly correlated with stellar matter in the Galactic bulge, providing strong support for the millisecond pulsar hypothesis.