Special Seminar

Speaker: Carsten Rott (The Ohio State University)
Title: Closing in on Dark Matter
Date (JST): Tue, Feb 15, 2011, 10:00 - 12:00
Place: Seminar Room at IPMU Kamioka Satellite
Related File: 425.pdf
Abstract: Unraveling the mysterious nature of dark matter is one of the most
exciting scientific goals of this decade. While there is overwhelming
evidence for its existence, its properties remain literally in the dark.
New approaches in the search for dark matter might finally allow us to
shed light on its properties and distribution in our Galaxy.

The newly completed giga-ton size IceCube neutrino telescope offers
exciting opportunities for the detection of neutrinos produced by dark
matter. Using early IceCube data, I performed a novel analysis for a
neutrino signal from the Galactic dark matter halo. I will present the
results of this analysis that allowed us to constrain the dark matter
self-annihilation cross section. I will further discuss searches for
annihilation signals from dark matter captured by the Sun; the principle
sensitivity is to the scattering cross section, complementary to direct
detection. I will conclude by providing an outlook on searches for dark
matter.
Remarks: On air at the Lecture Hall