Colloquium: Thursday, May 18 2017 3:30 - 4:30 pm
Room: 5345 HP (Herzberg Building)
Speaker: Dr. Mark Ward
Title: Detectors and Dark Matter
Abstract:
The history of particle physics is owed to both the development of theoretical models and to the detector technology that allows these models to be tested. One of the major open questions that has been puzzling physicists for the last 80 years is the nature of dark matter, which is thought to make up 26.8% of the universe. One of the favoured candidates for dark matter are Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs), which by their nature will be extremely difficult to detect. However, as technology has developed, it has opened up the possibility to search for WIMP interactions within a vast array of different detector types. This search is currently lead by liquid Nobel detectors, which have now entered the multi-ton era. During this seminar, the design and status of one such experiment; DEAP-3600 will be presented along with a possible avenue in which detector technology could be developed in order to improve upon the current generation.