Direct search for light dark matter with the CRESST-III experiment

by Dr Federica Petricca (Max-Planck-Institut fuer Physik)

Tuesday 6 Nov 2018, 16:15 → 17:15 Europe/Berlin

MPI Meeting rooms

In absence of an unambiguous dark matter signal, direct searches need to cover a wide range of potential dark matter particle masses. Thanks to their low energy thresholds, cryogenic experiments push the low-mass frontier with CRESST opening up the sub-GeV/c2 regime. CRESST-III employs scintillating CaWO4 crystals as target material operated at mK temperatures. The phonon signal allows for a very precise measurement of the deposited energy while the simultaneously acquired scintillation light provides particle discrimination on an event-by-event basis. In early 2018 CRESST-III completed an initial data taking campaign reaching nuclear recoil thresholds of well below 100eV. This unprecedented low threshold provides a significant boost in sensitivity beyond CRESST-II which achieved a threshold of 0.3keV allowing for the first time to probe dark matter masses as low as 500MeV/c2. The newest results of CRESST-III will be presented accompanied by a brief status update on the ongoing CRESST-III measurement campaign and a glance at the future of the experiment.