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Dark matter accounts for roughly 85% of the matter in the Universe, yet its constituents remain unknown. Solving this mystery calls for a wide range of experiments that can detect dark matter constituents with different masses and interactions. Now, Gadi Afek at Yale University and colleagues have proposed a laboratory-based detector that is drastically different from existing experiments. The detector works by measuring the momentum imparted when dark matter particles scatter off optically trapped nanometer-scale spheres. This approach provides an entirely new way to search for light dark matter particles with masses down to fractions of the mass of an electron.
On April 25 at 12:00PM EDT, Afek joins co-authors Daniel Carney, University of California Berkeley, and David C. Moore, Yale University for an exclusive discussion with the Physical Review Journal Club of their results, which were recently published in PRL, and summarized in Physics Magazine.
Afek and colleagues will provide a short presentation of their results followed by a live question-and-answer session where all attendees will have the opportunity to discuss the research live with the authors. Registration is free and a recording of the session will provided to all registrants.
