- April 29, 2020, 4:00 pm US/Central
- Gordon Krnjaic, Fermilab
- Chris Stoughton
- Video
Fermilab employees and users can access the Zoom link here (Services login required):
Anyone else can obtain a Zoom link by emailing Barb Kronkow at kronkow@fnal.gov
The gravitational evidence for the existence of dark matter is overwhelming; observations of galactic rotation curves, the CMB power spectrum, and light element abundances independently suggest that over 80% of all matter is “dark” and beyond the scope of the Standard Model. However, its particle nature is currently unknown, so discovering its potential non-gravitational interactions is a major priority in fundamental physics. In this talk, I will survey the landscape of light dark matter theories and introduce an emerging field of fixed-target experiments that are poised to cover hitherto unexplored dark matter candidates with MeV-GeV masses. These new techniques involve direct dark matter production with proton, electron, and *muon* beams at various facilities including Fermilab, CERN, SLAC, and JLab. Exploring this mass range is essential for fully testing a broad, predictive class of theories in which dark matter abundance arises from dark-visible interactions in thermal equilibrium in the early universe.