KICP seminar: Tanner Trickle (Fermilab)

12:00–1:00 pm ERC 401

Host: Anastasia Sokolenko

Tanner Trickle (Fermilab) "New Ideas in Direct Detection of Light Dark Matter with Electrons"

Electronic excitations are an integral part of the search for light, sub-GeV, dark matter (DM). Current experiments, such as DAMIC-M, are already exceptionally sensitive to electronic excitations, with energy thresholds approaching the target band gap. Therefore, it is crucial to understand the predicted DM-electron interaction rate. We will begin by discussing new ideas in calculating the DM-electron scattering and absorption rates in current targets. We extend the calculation to higher energy depositions by including a broader set of electronic states, and detail when these additional states are important. We show that the absorption rate cannot always be related to the photon absorption rate, and formulate the problem with a non-relativistic effective field theory. While current experiments are utilizing targets with O(eV) band-gaps, we also discuss novel targets with O(meV) band gaps. These can arise due to spin-orbit coupling, and are promising targets to search for sub-MeV DM. Lastly, we discuss some preliminary results constraining DM models which couple via the electron's magnetic and electric dipole operator.

About speaker: Tanner received his Ph.D. from Caltech in 2022, under his advisor Kathryn M. Zurek, and is currently a postdoc in the Particle Theory Department at Fermilab. His main research interest is broadly in dark matter phenomenology. He has studied signatures from ultralight dark matter candidates to primordial black holes in pulsar timing arrays, as well interactions between light dark matter and condensed matter systems. The title of his thesis was "Direct Detection of Light Dark Matter with Electrons, Phonons, and Magnons" and he will talk about "New Ideas in Direct Detection of Light Dark Matter with Electrons".

Event Type

Seminars

Jan 26