Speaker: Andreas Biekert (UC Berkeley) Title: Scintillation Yield From Electronic and Nuclear Recoils In Superfluid 4He  Abstract: HeRALD is a proposed sub-GeV scale dark matter detector based on a superfluid 4He target and transition edge sensor readout, supported as part of the TESSERACT project. Possible signal channels available for readout include prompt photons, triplet excimers, and roton and […]

Speaker: Kevin Thieme (University of Zurich) Title: A Measurement of the Mean Electronic Excitation Energy of Liquid Xenon Abstract: Detectors using liquid xenon as target are widely deployed in rare event searches. Conclusions on the interacting particle rely on a precise reconstruction of the deposited energy which requires calibrations of the energy scale of the detector by means […]

Speaker: Peter Taylor (NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory ) Title: The RSD Sorting Hat  Abstract: Redshift-space distortions (RSD) and weak lensing (WL) studies yield some of the tightest cosmological constraints. Large overlapping data sets from Euclid, the Rubin Observatory, the Roman Space Science Telescope and the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instruments will enable a joint RSD/WL analysis. Such an analysis could […]

Speaker: Noah Kurinsky (SLAC) Title: Quantum Sensors for Direct Detection of Sub-GeV Dark Matter  Abstract: Over the last 20 years, searches for dark matter above the proton mass have advanced significantly across direct and indirect searches, but sub-GeV dark matter has until recently been comparatively unprobed. In this talk, I will discuss the state of the Sub-GeV direct […]

Speaker: Luca Pagani (UC Davis) Title: First Results From The ARTIE Experiment Abstract: A measurement of the transmission coefficient for neutrons through a thick (~3 atoms/b) liquid natural argon target in the energy range 30-70 keV was performed by the Argon Resonance Transmission Interaction Experiment (ARTIE) using a time of flight neutron beam at Los Alamos National Laboratory. In […]

Speaker: Charlotte Alison Ward (Univ. of Maryland at College Park) Title: Using The Zwicky Transient Facility and Vera C. Rubin Observatory To Study Black Hole Seeds, Discover High-Z Quasars, and Measure Time Delays From Lensed Supernovae Abstract: Over the last 3 years, the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) has demonstrated the potential of wide-field transient surveys for […]

Location: via Zoom Speaker: Phillipp Windischofer (University of Oxford) Title: Detectors for Physics and Physics For Detectors Abstract: Powerful instrumentation has been a key enabler for many discoveries at the forefront of fundamental physics, from gravitational waves to the Higgs boson. In this seminar, I will argue that the converse is also true. I will show that […]

Location: via Zoom Speaker: Chiara Salemi (Massachusettes Institute of Technology) Title: Seeing the Invisible: Search for Low-Mass Axion Dark Matter Abstract: Multiple astrophysical and cosmological observations have shown that the visible matter described by the Standard Model is only a small fraction of the energy in the universe. We believe that there is about five times as […]

Speaker: Jason Sun (CalTech) Title: Understanding the Cosmological Evolution of Galaxies with Intensity Mapping  Abstract: The intensity mapping (IM) technique has been devised as a powerful tool to investigate the formation/evolution of the large scale structure and galaxies, alternative and complementary to the more traditional means relying on galaxy detection. In the high-redshift universe, in particular, synergies of […]

Speaker: Matthew Ho (Carnegie Mellon) Title: Galaxy Cluster Mass Estimation Using Deep Learning  Abstract: In this talk, I will discuss how we use modern deep learning models to infer galaxy cluster masses with high precision, reliable uncertainty, and computational efficiency. I will describe our work in using Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) to mitigate systematics in the virial […]

Speaker: Lingyuan Ji (John Hopkins) Title: Cosmological Neutrino Perturbations Without The Boltzmann Hierarchy  Abstract: We present a formulation of cosmological perturbation theory where the Boltzmann hierarchies that evolve the neutrino phase-space distributions are replaced by integrals that can be evaluated easily with Fast Fourier transforms. The simultaneous evaluation of these integrals combined with the differential equations for […]

Location: via Zoom Speaker: Julie Pagès (University of Zurich) Title: Different Flavors For Different Particles: Mass Hierarchies, B Anomalies, and Neutrinos  Abstract: Despite many advances in neutrino physics, their masses are still not known and their mass generation remains mysterious. On the other hand, quarks and charged leptons exhibit a very hierarchical mass spectrum which can […]