Searching for Dark Matter Shining in Gamma Rays
| Date/Time: | Monday, 11 Apr 2016 from 4:10 pm to 5:00 pm |
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| Location: | Physics 0003 |
| Phone: | 515-294-5441 |
| Channel: | College of Liberal Arts and Sciences |
| Actions: | Download iCal/vCal | Email Reminder |
Abstract: The center of the Milky Way is predicted to be the brightest source of gamma rays produced by dark matter annihilation or decay. In recent years, claims have been made of an excess consistent with a dark matter annihilation signal in the data collected by the Fermi Large Area Telescope towards the Galactic center.
Although these results are intriguing, the complexity involved in modeling the foreground and background emission from conventional astrophysical sources of gamma rays makes a conclusive interpretation of these results challenging.
In this talk, I'll present results from these searches.
Here is a link to a technical paper that has many of the details of the work I'll discuss in my talk, as well as additional references: http://arxiv.org/abs/1511.02938
Bio:
2012-Present Assistant Professor, Dept of Physics & Astronomy, University of California at Irvine
1994 High School Teacher of Mathematics and Physics, Liceo Scientifico A. Pacinotti, Cagliari, Italy
2007-2012 Research Associate, SLAC National Accelerator Lab and KIPAC, USA. Dark matter searches with gamma rays. Member of the Fermi LAT Collaboration.
2002-2007 Research Associate, Stanford University. Neutrino physics. Member of the MINOS Collaboration.
2002 PhD Physics, Michigan State University. Title of Thesis: "Search for Large Extra Dimensions with Diphoton Events at CDF." Advisor: Joey Huston. Member of the CDF Collaboration.