Towards Dark Matter discovery with direct, production, and indirect searches

通过直接、生产和间接搜索探索暗物质

• 批准号: 1969157
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University College London
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2017 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-1969157
• 关键词: Towards; Dark; Matter; discovery; direct

Discovery of the nature of the Dark Matter, comprising 85% of the matter in the Universe, is internationally recognised as one of the highest scientific priorities of our time. Three complementary techniques are being pursued to shed light on this elusive substance. Direct searches such as the LUX and LZ experiments use highly sensitive ultra-low background detectors in deep underground laboratories to search for rare interactions of galactic Dark Matter in terrestrial targets. Accelerator searches attempt to recreate the conditions of the early Big Bang to produce new Dark Matter particles that would leave characteristic missing energy signatures or evidence of mediator particles in detectors such as ATLAS at the LHC. Indirect searches seek evidence of Dark Matter annihilation decay products from galactic and extra-galactic sources using high precision space-based particle detectors. These are complementary techniques that may bring first detections in the coming years through world-leading experiments. Currently, however, precisely how such signals would relate to one another, and the accuracy with which robust claims of discovery of Dark Matter could be claimed, is unclear. This project will explore the implications of existing results from each on the other fields to constrain the parameter space for Dark Matter models, and define the phase space upon which future limits or positive detections may be collectively mapped. This research is of considerable significance to the field; the interrelation of results from the three search techniques must be well characterised for definitive discovery of Dark Matter.

暗物质占宇宙中物质的85%，发现暗物质的本质是国际公认的我们这个时代最高科学优先事项之一。目前正在采用三种补充技术来阐明这种难以捉摸的物质。直接搜索，如LUX和LZ实验，使用深地下实验室中的高灵敏度超低背景探测器来搜索地球目标中银河系暗物质的罕见相互作用。加速器搜索试图重现早期大爆炸的条件，以产生新的暗物质粒子，这些粒子将在LHC的ATLAS等探测器中留下特征性的缺失能量特征或中介粒子的证据。间接搜索使用高精度的空间粒子探测器从银河系和银河系外的来源寻找暗物质湮灭衰变产物的证据。这些都是补充技术，可能会在未来几年通过世界领先的实验带来第一次检测。然而，目前还不清楚这些信号彼此之间的确切关系，以及发现暗物质的可靠声明的准确性。该项目将探索每个领域的现有结果对其他领域的影响，以约束暗物质模型的参数空间，并定义相空间，未来的限制或积极的检测可能会被集体映射。这项研究是相当重要的领域;从三个搜索技术的结果的相互关系必须很好地表征暗物质的最终发现。