Dark Forces at Accelerators

16 Oct 2012, 09:00 → 19 Oct 2012, 18:00 Europe/Rome

Aula B. Touschek, Bldg 36 (INFN-LNF)

Fabio Bossi (LNF)

Several recent astrophysical observations have revived the idea of the existence of a hidden force weakly coupled to ordinary matter, mediated by new gauge bosons of masses in the MeV to GeV range. These new bosons can be produced at present day accelerators, both in collider experiments and in fixed target ones. A first successful meeting to discuss these issues was held in September 2009 at SLAC. At the time, new experimental activities were announced to start in several different laboratories. This workshop intends to bring theorists and experimentalists together to make the point on the advances in the field since then. The connection of these studies to the search for dark matter, as well as the potentials of future facilities, presently under study, will also be addressed.

Tuesday, 16 October

08:30 Registration

Registration

1 Workshop opening

Fixed target experiments I

2 Dark forces and New Physics at the Intensity Frontier

I review theoretical motivations for the experimental searches of new very weakly coupled states, and argue why this will continue to be an important part of the precision and intensity frontier programs.

Speaker: Dr Maxim Pospelov (Perimeter Institute/University of Victoria)

Slides Frascati_pospelov.pdf

3 APEX: A Prime EXperiment

APEX is a fixed target experiment at Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (JLab) in Virginia, USA, that searches for a new gauge boson (A') with sub-GeV mass and coupling to ordinary matter of g' ~ (10^-2 - 10^-6) e. Electrons impinge upon a fixed target of high-Z material to produce an A' via a process analogous to photon bremsstrahlung, which then decays to an e+ e- pair that is detected by the JLab Hall A High Resolution Spectrometers. A test run was held in July of 2010, covering an A' mass range from 175 to 250 MeV and couplings g'/e > 10^-3 . A full run is approved and will cover m_A' ~ 65 to 525 MeV and g'/e > 2.3x10^-4 . I will present the results of the test run and report on the current status of preparations for the full run.

Speaker: James Beacham (New York University)

Slides Beacham_APEX_Dark_Workshop_2012.pdf

10:55 coffee break

Fixed target experiments II

4 Search for Dark Photons at the Mainz Microtron

As a high intensity and high beam quality electron accelerator, the Mainz Microtron (MAMI) is well suited for the search for possible gauge bosons of the dark sector, the so called dark photons. The capabilities of the accelerator in combination with the high resolution spectrometer setup of the A1 collaboration were already demonstrated in a first test experiment in 2011. An extension of this experiment to lower photon masses took place beginning of this year and will be presented in this talk.

Speaker: Dr Harald Merkel (Institut fuer Kernphysik, Johannes Gutenberg-Uniververitaet Mainz)

Slides MerkelDark2012.pdf

5 Light Dark Gauge Boson Searches in Electron-Proton Scattering: Description of Present Data and Simulation for Future Experiments

We study the exploration reach of various fixed target experiments searching for the dark photon. Therefore we investigate the creation of a lepton pair induced by quasi elastic scattering of an electron beam off a heavy nucleus (A,Z), i.e. e(A,Z) -> e (A,Z) e^+e^- with a dark photon A' as signal and a virtual photon as background in the intermediate state. We present our calculations in comparison with the data taken in the 2011 test runs of the MAMI dark photon experiment at Mainz and the APEX experiment at Jefferson Lab and prove the extracted exclusion limits on the kinetic mixing factor, describing the coupling strength of A' to leptons. Predictions of the expected exclusion limits of the 2012 beam time at MAMI will be presented. Furthermore estimates for the reach of the HPS and DarkLight experiments at Jefferson Lab and for the planned MESA facility at Mainz will be given.

Speaker: Tobias Beranek (Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz)

Slides beranek_dark2012.pdf

6 Hidden Photons in beam dump experiments

Recently there has been much interest in hidden sectors with light extra U(1) gauge bosons, so called hidden photons. On the theoretical side, scenarios of that kind are well motivated as a common feature of physics beyond the Standard Model like string theory and SUSY. Because of their possible connection with dark matter they received further attention also from a phenomenological point of view triggered by different astrophysical anomalies and dark matter direct detection claims. In this talk, limits on hidden photons from past electron beam dump experiments will be shown including two new limits from such experiments at KEK and Orsay that have so far not been considered. In addition, the features of an extension to a simple supersymmetric hidden sector model with a viable Dark Matter candidate are presented.

Speaker: Sarah Andreas (DESY)

Slides SAndreas_Dark2012.pdf

13:10 Lunch break

Fixed target experiments III

7 Heavy Photon Search Experiment

The Heavy Photon Search Experiment (HPS) is a new experiment at Jefferson Lab designed to look for massive vector gauge bosons (heavy photons) in the mass range 20-1000 MeV that couple to electrons with couplings ’/ in the range 10-5 to 10-10 . The experiment utilizes a compact forward spectrometer employing silicon microstrip detectors for vertexing and tracking and a PbWO4 electromagnetic calorimeter for fast triggering, and is designed to measure the invariant mass and decay vertex location of electro-produced heavy photons. Following initial approval in January 2011, the HPS Collaboration has mounted the HPS Test Run Experiment, which ran parasitically in Hall B at JLAB during Spring 2012, and commissioned the tracker, ECal, high rate trigger, and DAQ, and succeeded in testing background assumptions for the full experiment. On the basis of this successful test run, the experiment has been approved for physics running. The design, performance, and results from the Test Run apparatus will be discussed, along with the collaboration’s plans for future construction and data taking.

Speaker: John Jaros (SLAC)

Slides HPS_Dark2012.ppt

8 The DarkLight Experiment – A Status Report

Interest in experiments probing physics Beyond the Standard Model (BSM) has increased in recent years. At Jefferson Lab, the LIPSS experiments demonstrated that new, high intensity accelerators can be used to explore regions of dark matter parameter space heretofore inaccessible. The status of promising experiments will be discussed, with a focus on DarkLight, one of three efforts at Jefferson Lab searching for the gauge boson A’. DarkLight will use a high current electron beam scattering off a gaseous hydrogen target.

Speaker: Jim Boyce (Jlab)

Slides DARK2012_-_Boyce_-_DarkLight.pdf

16:00 coffee break

Meson and nuclear decays

9 U boson search in phi dalitz decays with KLOE

We have searched for a new neutral gauge vector boson (U boson) in phi(1020) to eta e+e- decays, using about 1.8 fb-1 of data collected by the KLOE detector. The present analysis is based on an identication of the eta meson by its decays into three neutral pions, which provides a sample about twice larger than the one used in our previously published result. The limit on U boson production is improved accordingly.

Speaker: Ivano Sarra (LNF)

Slides sarra_dark2012.pdf

10 Search for a new gauge boson in π0 decays with WASA-at-COSY

Decays of the π0 allows to search mediates gauge bosons of dark forces in the MeV range. The decay π 0 → e+ e−γ is sensitive to a "dark photon" that decays into an e+ e− pair. WASA-at-COSY has collected a 500k data sample to constrains the parameters of this hypothetical gauge boson. The rare decay π 0 → e+ e− might also probe physics beyond the standard model. The 3σ deviation between experiment and SM prediction might be explained by a dark gauge boson, which might also account for the enhanced e+ e− annihilation line from the galactic center. A high statistics run with WASA-at-COSY could confirm the present experimental result.

Speaker: Mr Carl-Oscar Gullstroem (Uppsala University)

Slides pieecog.pdf

11 Search for a light neutral boson in nuclear transitions

In a recent series of papers the intriguing possibility was explored that the cosmic dark matter consists of new elementary particles with masses in the MeV range, which could be searched for in nuclear physics laboratories. Such particles are not excluded by any obvious laboratory measurements or astrophysical arguments. There are even some experimental indications for a light neutral boson with a mass of around 9 MeV/c2 [1,2]. The spectrometers used for the above studies were plastic telescopes, which are insufficient for the required precision. We have improved the setups already and got somewhat stronger indications, but the reliability of the results can still be questioned because of the large systematic errors [3,4]. The signature of the new particle is the very characteristic angular correlation of the e+e- pairs from their decay. Quantum electrodynamics predicts that the angular correlation between the e+e- pairs emitted in internal pair creation drops smoothly with the separation angle. In striking contrast, when the transition takes place by the emission of a short-lived neutral particle annihilating into an e$^+$e$^-$ pair, the angular correlation becomes sharply peaked at large angles. In order to search for this signature with high confidence we need an internal pair spectrometer with much better specifications, which was ever built for studying nuclear transitions. We started to build a Compact Orange type Positron Electron spectrometer (COPE) for precise studies of the e+e- pair creation in the energy range of 10-20 MeV with large solid angle, good energy (1\%) and angular (2 deg.) resolutions, using strong permanent magnets. The diameter of such a spectrometer will be about 30 cm, which is versatile and can be used at different laboratories. With the presently available tracking detectors, data-acquisition systems and computers we will be able to study the differential internal pair creation process more precisely than ever before, with a precision enaugh for confirming (or discarding with high confidence) the existence of such light neutral particles. References: [1] F.W.N. de Boer and R. van Dantzig, Phys. Rev. Lett. 61, 1274 (1988). [2] F.W.N. de Boer et al., Phy. Lett. B 388, 235. (1996); J. Phys. G 23, L85 (1997); J. Phys. G 27 L29 (2001). [3] A. Krasznahorkay et al., Acta Phys. Polonica B 37, 239 (2006); Nucl. Phys. News Int. 15, 36 (2005); AIP Conf. Proc. 802, 236 (2005). [4] A. Vitez et al., Acta Phys. Polonica B 39 (2008) 483.

Speaker: Prof. Attila Krasznahorkay (Inst. of Nucl. Res. of the Hung. Acad. of Sci. (ATOMKI), Head, Division of Nuclear Physics)

Slides AKrasznahorkay.pptx

18:30 Welcome Cocktail

Wednesday, 17 October

Electron-positron collider experiments I

12 U bosons, "dark" or "hidden" photons, extra U(1)'s and new forces

Speaker: Prof. Pierre Fayet (ENS Paris)

Slides fayet.pdf

13 Searches for dark photons at BABAR

We present the results of several searches for dark photons produced in e+e- collisions and decaying into leptons, hadrons, or invisible final states.

Speaker: Elisa Guido (INFN Genova)

Slides guido.pdf

14 U-Boson search in $e^+e^- \to \mu^+\mu^-(\gamma)$ process at KLOE

Following recent puzzling astrophysical results and recent theoretical studies, a search for a relatively low mass ( 1 GeV) new vector boson (the U), weakly coupled with SM particles and decaying into leptons pairs, by using the Initial State Radiation (ISR) process, was performed at KLOE. The KLOE experiment at the $\phi$ − factory DA$\Phi$NE is the first to have exploited ISR to precisely determine cross section process like $e^+e^- \to \pi^+\pi^-(\gamma)$ and $e^+e^- \to \mu^+\mu^-(\gamma)$ cross section below 1 GeV. We use 220 pb$^-1$ of data to search for light vector boson in the $e^+e^- \to \mu^+\mu^-(\gamma)$ channel. No evidence was found and a prelimiary upper limit in the mass range 600 - 1000 MeV was extracted.

Speaker: Dr Francesca Curciarello (Dipartimento di Fisica-Università di Messina)

Slides darkforces_conference.pdf

15 Search for dark sector at BESIII

At BESIII, with 106 million psi(2S) events at BESIII, we have searched for a light Higgs-like boson A0 in the process psi(2S)-> pi+pi- J/psi, J/psi->\gamma A0, A0-> mu+mu-. We set 90% confidence level upper limits on the product branching fractions for J/psi -> gammaA0, A0 -> mu+mu− that range from 4 * 10^−7 to 2.1 * 10^−5, depending on the mass of A0, for M(A0) < 3.0 GeV/c2. Using J/psi-> \phi eta, phi \etap in 225 million J/psi decay events, we also make an updated analysis for \eta /\etap -> invisible decay. No evidence is found for these rare decays, and upper limits at 90\% confidence level are set, which are 5-10 times stringent than previous limits set by the previous BESII experiment.

Speaker: Mr Jinlin Fu (Nanjing University)

Slides jinlin.fu_dark2012.pdf

11:05 coffee break

Electron-positron collider experiments II

16 Dark photon search and the Higgs-strahlung channel

Many extensions of the Standard Model introduce an additional U(1) interaction, which is mediated by a U(1) boson, often by a Higgs mechanism adding a dark Higgs (or dark Higgses) to the models. This gauge boson, also known as the "Dark Photon", typically has very weak coupling to Standard Model particles. Experimental results from direct Dark Matter searches, (e.g. DAMA/LIBRA) and other experimental anomalies (e.g. g-2), can be explained by such an additional interaction. Dark gauge bosons are typically of low mass; of order MeV to GeV. The ideal tools to discover such particles are therefore not high-energy collider experiments, but lower-energy high-luminosity collider experiments like Belle and BaBar, or dedicated fixed target experiments, several of which are planned or already under construction at JLAB (Newport News, USA) or at MAMI (Mainz, Germany), for example. In Belle, the search of the dark photon focuses on the so-called Higgs-strahlung channel, as proposed by Batell et al., where a dark photon and a dark Higgs are produced. Preliminary results will be presented and discussed. B. Batell, M. Pospelov, and A. Ritz arXiv:0903.0363 (2009).

Speaker: Dr Igal Jaegle (University of Hawaii)

Slides darkphoton.pdf

17 Search for dark photon and dark Higgs at BABAR

We have searched for a dark photon produced in e+e- collisions and radiating a dark Higgs. The resulting 6-fermion final state is reconstructed in leptonic and leptonic+hadronic channels. We find no signal and set tight limits on the parameters of the model.

Speaker: Alessandro Gaz (University of Colorado)

Slides Dark_2012_gaz.pdf

18 Search for dark higgsstrahlung processes at KLOE

We searched for the existence of a higgsstrahlung process in a secluded sector, possibly leading to a dark photon and a dark Higgs boson final state. Using the KLOE detector at DAFNE, we investigated the case in which the dark Higgs boson is lighter than the dark photon U and thus escapes detection, showing up as missing energy, and the dark photon U decays in a muon pair. We will report the status of the analysis.

Speaker: Enrico Graziani (ROMA3)

Slides higgsstrahlung_kloe.pptx

13:20 lunch break

Hadron collider experiments

19 Search for long lived exotic particles at LHCb

Several theories beyond the Standard Model predict the existence of new long-lived particles. We present results from searches of LHCb data for secondary vertices which can be associated with the decay of such particles, and set limits on the associated production rates.

Speaker: Veerle Heijne (NIKHEF)

Slides VHeijne_LHCb_DARK2012.pdf

20 Search for invisible particle production in monojet and monophoton events with missing transverse momentum with the ATLAS detector

Events composed of one high transverse energy jet or photon and large missing transverse momentum represent one of the simplest and most striking signatures that can be observed at a hadron collider. The Standard Model contribution to 'monojet' events is dominated by a Z decaying to a pair of neutrinos plus a recoiling jet. Several new physics models predict monojet and monophoton events. They can occur via production of a jet/photon in association with an invisible particle or via pair production of invisible particles recoiling against a hard radiative jet or photon. The talk presents results from searches for new physics in monojet and monophoton events performed by the ATLAS experiment at the LHC.

Speaker: Jan Stark (LPSC Grenoble)

Slides Stark_MonojetsMonophotons.pdf

16:00 coffee break

Related searches

21 10 orders of magnitude lighter -- Fundamental physics @ really low energies

Although this workshop is mainly concerned with the MeV to GeV scale, new physics may hide at even lower perhaps sub-eV masses. A famous example is the axion which has a sub-eV mass, solves the strong CP problem (appearing at the few 100 MeV scale of QCD) and is also one of the leading dark matter candidates. Going beyond this example we argue that there exists an excellent `physics case' motivating the search for axions, but also for more general WISPs (very weakly interacting sub-eV particles). This physics case arises from both experimental and observational evidence as well as the desire to test theoretical model building and opens up new and exciting possibilities for existing and future experiments.

Speaker: Joerg Jaeckel (University of Durham)

Slides Jaeckel.pdf

22 The Muon Anomaly and Dark Parity Violation

A possible "Dark Boson" explanation for the 3.6sigma discrepancy between the muon anomalous magnetic moment theory and experiment is reviewed. Implications for low energy atomic and polarized electron scattering parity violation experiments are described. Signatures for such a "Dark Boson" in K, B and Higgs decays are discussed.

Speaker: Dr William Marciano (Brookhaven National Laboratory)

Slides marciano.pdf

23 A new parity violation experiment

After a series of parity violating electron scattering experiments which explored the strangeness content of the nucleon, we plan on a new, improved parity violation experiment where we will measure the weak charge of the proton with a relative accuracy of 1.7%. This accuracy results in a measurement of the effective electroweak mixing angle sin^2 theta_W of 1.5 per mille, which is an important input parameter of the standard model. The target accuracy is comparable to measurements stemming from the Z-pole. The new parity violation experiment will be able to test new physics beyond the standard model up to a scale Lambda = 6,4 TeV. The measurement will be performed a low beam energy with a momentum transfer q between 50 and 70 MeV, thus beeing sensitive to dark parity violating etra Z-boson in this mass range. The expected accuracy will be discussed and the experimental strategy will be presented.

Speaker: Frank Maas (University of Mainz)

Slides Maas_Dark_Forces_Frascati_Parity_upload.pdf

24 The New Muon g-2 Experiment at Fermilab

There is a long standing discrepancy between the Standard Model prediction for the muon g-2 and the value measured by the Brookhaven E821 Experiment. At present the discrepancy stands at about three standard deviations, with comparable accuracy between experiment and theory. Two new proposals at Femilab and J-PARC plan to improve the experimental uncertainty of a factor 4, and there is good motivation to expect a further reduction of the error from the theoretical side. I will review the status of the proposal to Fermilab, E989, and discuss how the goal of 0.14 ppm on the muon anomaly can be achieved, by collecting more than 21 times the statistics of the BNL measurement, and obtaining a factor of 3 reduction in the overall systematic error.

Speaker: Graziano Venanzoni (LNF)

Slides gv_171012_2.pdf

25 Search for dark photons at low energy e-gamma collider

We study a possibility of neutral pion and dark photon production at a high-luminosity photon-electron collider with the energy of the photon about 20 Mev and the energy of the electron about 1 GeV. The neutral pion production channel is Primakoff-type via the t-channel photon exchange. The dark photon production channel is similar to the timelike Compton scattering on the electron. We developed the Monte Carlo generator and used it to estimate the signal feasibility and to investigate the event distributions affected by a realistic smearing of the photon and electron beams. We estimate the luminosity of the photon-electron collisions required to measure the pion decay width with 1% error and to set a limit on dark photon coupling parameter epsilon for the dark photon mass below 250 MeV competitive with the current and future experiments.

Speaker: Mr Sergiy Ivashyn (ITP NSC KIPT (Kharkiv))

Thursday, 18 October

Particdle dark matter I

26 Dark Matter candidates: where do we stand?

I will review the different dark matter candidates which have been proposed during the last few years, recalling in particular the motivation for introducing them and will discuss the type of dark forces which have been proposed in these new models.

Speaker: Celine Boehm (Durahm)

Slides boehm.pdf

27 Direct detection of Dark Matter particles

In the direct investigation of the Dark Matter particles in the galactic halo both model independent and model dependent strategies with various target materials are exploited. In particular, recent results obtained by the DAMA/LIBRA set-up, exploiting the model independent annual modulation signature for Dark Matter particles, will be summarized. The data satisfy at high confidence level all the many requirements of the Dark Matter annual modulation signature. Features of the detectors in the field, experimental and theoretical uncertainties, and their implications in the interpretation and comparison of different kinds of results will be discussed as fundamental aspects.

Speaker: Dr Riccardo Cerulli (LNGS)

Slides cerulli_DarkForce2012.pdf

28 Dark Matter in the sky

Speaker: Dr Aldo Morselli (INFN Roma II)

Slides DarkForces12_LNF_Morselli.pdf

29 Indirect dark matter search with neutrino telescopes

In recent years, thanks to the construction of large Cherenkov neutrino detectors, dark matter has become one of the main research topics for the neutrino astronomy. At present, there are two big neutrino telescopes based on the Cherenkov technique in ice and water: IceCUBE at the South Pole and ANTARES in the northern hemisphere. Both ANTARES and IceCUBE are performing an indirect search for dark matter by looking for a statistical excess of neutrinos coming from astrophysical massive objects, such as the Sun, the Earth and the Galactic Centre. This excess could be an evidence of the possible annihilation of dark matter particles in the centre of these objects. In one of the most popular scenario the dark matter is composed by WIMP particles. These particles lose kinetic energy through elastic scattering and then are gravitationally trapped in massive objects (like the Sun) and "fall down" reaching their inner core. Here they can interact with other WIMPs, in self-annihilation reactions, producing some standard model particles that, in subsequent steps, originate neutrinos that can be detected at Earth. The preliminary results of the sensitivity of the ANTARES neutrino telescope to the indirect detection of dark matter fluxes will be presented, as well as the last IceCUBE published results, for different dark matter models and sources.

Speaker: Mr Paolo Fermani (Università di Roma "La Sapienza" - INFN Roma)

Slides DARK2012_PaoloFermani.ppt

11:05 Coffee break

Particle dark matter II

30 Deeply Inelastic Dark Matter

We examine the production of low mass dark matter particles at the fixed target on the NuMI beamline at Fermilab. Such particles can rescatter in the MINOS near detector producing neutral current-like events. In particular, we bound the couplings of GeV scale Dirac fermion WIMPs for the case that the WIMP-quark interaction is mediated by a (pseudo-)scalar or (axial-)vector which is lighter than the dark matter and compare these bounds to those from old beam dump experiments. We introduce a dipole model to allow the probing of very low mediator masses.

Speaker: Mr Christopher Wallace (IPPP, Durham)

Slides WallaceDARK2012.pdf

31 First Direct Detection Limits on sub-GeV Dark Matter and Future Prospects

Direct dark matter (DM) detection experiments almost always focus on Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs), which have a mass in the 1--1000 GeV range. However, what if DM is not a WIMP? In this talk, new direct detection strategies for DM particles with MeV to GeV mass will be presented. In this largely unexplored mass range, DM can scatter with electrons, causing ionization of atoms in a detector target material and leading to single- or few-electron events. I will present the first direct detection limits on DM as light as a few MeV, using XENON10 data. Theoretically interesting models can already be probed. Significant improvements in sensitivity should be possible with dedicated experiments, opening up a window to new regions in DM parameter space.

Speaker: Prof. Rouven Essig (Stony Brook University)

32 Searching for dark matter at the Compact Muon Solenoid experiment

In astrophysical observations, the dark matter is a hypothetical matter which constitutes most of the mass in our universe, but its nature remains unknown. Searches for the dark matter can be divided into three categorized. The first method is to search for the scattered dark matter particles off atomic nuclei within a detector, this method is called the direct detection. The second method is to search for secondary particles such as positrons, antiprotons, or gamma-rays which could originate from annihilations of dark matter particles, this method is called the indirect detection. The last method is to search for dark matter created from the particle collisions at the collider. In this talk, the search for the dark matter at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will be presented. The signature has been studied from events containing an energetic jet or photon, and an imbalance in transverse momentum using a data sample of pp collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 7 and 8 TeV. The data has been collected by the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) detector at the LHC. Constraints on the dark matter-nucleon scattering cross sections are determined for both spin-independent and spin-dependent interaction models, and compared with results from direct and indirect detections.

Speaker: Dr Norraphat Srimanobhas (Chulalongkorn University, Thailand)

Slides N_Srimanobhas_DARK2012_Optomized.pdf

33 Searches for R-parity conserving supersymmetry with the ATLAS detector

Despite the absence of experimental evidence, weak scale supersymmetry remains one of the best motivated and studied Standard Model extensions. Numerous models of R-parity conserving supersymmetry feature dark matter candidates in form of the lightest neutralino. The ATLAS experiment searches for signs of R-parity conserving supersymmetry in a large variety of signatures involving events with abnormal production of missing transverse momentum, jets, leptons, third generation fermions, gauge bosons or massive long-lived particles. The talk presents a summary of recent results obtained in these searches.

Speaker: Yousuke Kataoka (University of Tokio)

Slides kataoka_susy121018_2.pdf

13:50 Lunch break

Dark Matter for general public and schools

Public lecture on dark matter and related searches (in italian).

20:00 Social dinner

Social dinner

Friday, 19 October

Dark matter from the cosmos

34 CMB as a powerful probe of dark matter annihilation at the epoch of recombination

The injection of secondary particles produced by dark annihilation around redshift 1000 would inevitably affect the process of recombination, leaving an imprint on cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature and polarization anisotropies. We show that the most recent CMB measurements provided by the WMAP satellite mission and the ACT telescope place interesting constraints on DM self-annihilation rates. Our analysis includes an accurate treatment of the time-dependent coupling of the DM annihilation energy with the thermal gas. We present constraints for specific models of dark matter annihilation channels, as well as a model-independent approach to calculate constraints with future experiments, based on a principal components analysis. We show that current data place already stringent constraints on light DM particles, ruling out thermal WIMPs with mass m < 10GeV annihilating into electrons and WIMPs with mass m < 4GeV annihilating into muons. Finally, we argue that upcoming CMB experiments such as Planck, will improve the constraints by at least 1 order of magnitude, thus providing a sensitive probe of the properties of DM particles.

Speaker: Dr Silvia Galli (IAP)

Slides Galli_dmannihilation.pdf

35 The dark side of Stars

I will focus on constraints that can be imposed on the properties of dark matter based on observations of neutron stars and white dwarfs. In particular, I will show constraints on WIMP self-interactions (that in some cases are stricter than the bullet cluster) as well as constraints on generic asymmetric dark matter derived from observations of nearby old neutron stars.

Speaker: Prof. Chris kouvaris (CP3-Origins, University of Southern Denmark)

Slides Roma_kouvaris.pdf

Future facilities

36 Status of Belle II and SuperKEKB

New physics, beyond the standard model, in the quark flavor sector is currently one of the most challenging particle physics topics with tremendous implications in different physics sectors especially if measurements of CP violation in the Standard Model, done at Belle and BaBar experiments, do not explain early universe data like the matter anti-matter asymmetry. With about 40 times more luminosity than KEKB accelerator, SUPERKEKB accelerator and Belle II detector are being built to study such new physics starting in the year 2014-2015. Status of the SUPERKEKB accelerator and status of Belle II detector sub-components will be discussed. Some of B-decay channels with Dark Matter candidates will, also, be discussed within the Belle II detector.

Speaker: Prof. Rachid Ayad (University Of tabuk)

Slides dark2012-ayad-belleII-oct-19-rel.pptx

37 Status of the SuperB project

With an integrated luminosity goal larger than 75 ab-1, the SuperB factory, to be built on the Tor Vergata Campus, near Roma (Italy) by 2016, has the very ambitious goal to unravel the detailed structure of the new physics soon to be discovered at the LHC, or to explore BSM physics beyond the LHC reach if nothing is found there. This goal will be reached using a large number of rare B , charm and tau decays very sensitive to the presence of new heavy particles and dark forces carriers via virtual loops. The physics prospects of this ultra-high luminosity e+e- collider will be presented in detail . The important advantages brought by the specific assets of the SuperB project, especially beam polarization and capability to run at the charm threshold with a significant boost will be presented, with a special emphasis on specific dark forces potential of this new project

Speaker: Riccardo Faccini (ROMA1)

Slides Faccini-Dark.pdf

11:20 coffee break

Conclusions

slides DARK2012_concluding_.pdf