2024 CDM Annual Workshop - Theme TBC

The third Centre Annual Workshop will be held on Wednesday 20th - Friday 22nd November 2024. The workshop will be held at the Novotel Wollongong Northbeach, in North Wollongong, NSW.

1 Code of Conduct
2 Getting to the Novotel Northbeach, in North Wollongong
3 General information and social script
4 Zoom details
5 COVID-19 and health protocols for all in-person attendees - please read
6 EDI Snippet - Share your interests and/or hobbies in your talk, poster or at the talent show!
7 Photography and permissions
8 Menus
9 Uploading presentations
10 Agenda
11 Supporting documents

Code of Conduct

In registering for this event, you have agreed to abide by the Centre’s Code of Conduct. Please ensure that you are familiar with the Code of Conduct, including the Centre Values which are detailed in the full document. An extract of the requirements regarding conduct in meetings is below (click to expand the section).

The Code of Conduct outlines the process by which you can report inappropriate behaviour and there are additional reporting options outlined below.

The Centre expects Centre Members to behave in a courteous, respectful and professional manner during any meetings they attend at or on behalf of the Centre whether virtually or in person. Consistent with the Centre Values and the Code of Conduct, the Centre expects that all people who attend Centre endorsed activities including workshops, executive and any other committee meetings, conferences and retreats are treated with dignity and respect at all times.

Therefore, Centre Members are required to:

i. take positive steps to help prevent behaviours that undermine the Code of Conduct including bullying, harassment and sexual harassment;

ii. make a reasonable effort to ensure that communication is appropriate for a professional audience including people from different backgrounds;

iii. demonstrate tolerance for people’s differences based upon any protected attributes such as: race, colour, sex, sexual orientation, age, physical or mental disability, marital status, family or carer responsibilities, pregnancy, religion, political opinion, national extraction;

iv. refrain from engaging in or turning a blind eye to any use of racist, sexual or sexist language or imagery; and

v. refrain from insulting or putting down other attendees –rather, critique ideas not individuals.

Offenders may be subject to further disciplinary action, including but not limited to having their Centre membership revoked and being banned from participating in any future Centre meetings or other activities. Anyone who wishes to report a violation of this policy is asked to speak confidentially to the meeting organiser, the Chief Operating Officer or the Centre Director who will then determine the most appropriate course(s) of action.

Code of Conduct Allies

In addition, if Centre members don’t feel comfortable approaching the COO or Centre Director, the Centre’s Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Committee Members (with the rainbow logos on their nametags) have agreed to be Code of Conduct Allies at the annual workshop.

Role of Code of Conduct Allies:

Wear a nametag with the rainbow CDM logo
Be available to be contacted if someone experiences inappropriate behaviour during the annual workshop
Proceed in accordance with the expectation of allies outlined below

Expectations of Allies:

Listen to the issue/concern without judgement
Maintain confidentiality where possible
Ask the person if they have a preferred course of action
If necessary, report the matter to the COO, Centre Director or one of the Chief Investigators of the Centre without disclosing any personal/confidential information. They will advise on how to proceed in accordance with the Centre’s code of conduct and/or the relevant institution’s HR processes
Do not place yourself in a situation where you do not feel comfortable. If you do not feel confident to have a further discussion, please let the person know.

Getting to the Novotel Northbeach, in North Wollongong

Novotel Northbeach is located at 2/14 Cliff Road North Wollongong

The nearest train station is North Wollongong. The trains between Wollongong and Sydney use Opal, which allows the use of a debit card or a payment card in your phone wallet to tap on and off to pay for travel.

From North Wollongong Station to Novotel Wollongong Northbeach:

3 minute drive
15 minute walk (950m)

From Sydney Airport to North Wollongong Station:

1 hour 15 minute drive
1 hour 30 minutes by public transport
- T8 - train from Sydney Airport towards McArthur, get off at Wolli Creek
- South Coast Line - train from Wolli Creek towards Kiama, get off at North Wollongong

From Shellharbour Airport to North Wollongong Station:

18 minute drive
40 minutes by public transport
- South Coast Line - train from Albion Park towards Central, get off at North Wollongong

Parking options at Novotel Wollongong Northbeach:

A multi-storey car park is located adjacent to the hotel
- Overnight parking is free for attendees staying at the Novotel (subject to availability)
There is street parking nearby

Parking costs incurred will not be covered by the Centre. If you end up paying for parking, please discuss possible reimbursement with your node.

General information and social script

For more information about the workshop, venue and activities see the attached.

Zoom details

COVID-19 and health protocols for all in-person attendees - please read

We have immunocompromised people attending the workshop so if you are unwell, please do not attend.

For current information on the COVID-19 recommendations and requirements in New South Wales, visit: https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/Infectious/covid-19/Pages/default.aspx

This site has information about how to protect your health and the health of others. What to do if you develop symptoms, how to test, isolation and reporting requirements.

CDM ECR and Annual Workshop specific COVID-19 and health information

Please ensure you comply with the recommendations and requirements in New South Wales outlined above.

Some further instructions related to the workshop are as follows.

Face masks and RATs will be available to attendees if required.
If you are unwell before travelling to the workshop, please stay home and get tested.
If you experience any COVID-19 symptoms during the workshop, please do a test (there are RAT tests available) immediately, commence wearing a face mask and notify organisers that you are unwell.
If the RAT is negative, please wear a face mask and use hand sanitiser regularly and maintain social distancing whilst you are experiencing any symptoms and continue to take a RAT test each day that you are experiencing symptoms.
If the RAT is positive, please notify the organisers immediately. If you are staying in a single room, please isolate to your room and await further instructions. If you are staying in a shared room, organisers will make arrangements for the person that is sharing with you to move into a separate room.
Organisers will work with you to notify any of your close contacts and with further instructions. They will also assess whether the COVID-19 positive participant(s) need to remain in situ or return home. Depending on where people are in relation to their homes, it may be possible to assist people to return to their home to isolate if necessary.

Conference organisers emergency contacts:

Anita Vecchies - 0450101511

Elisabetta Barberio - 0400876293

EDI Snippet - Share your interests and/or hobbies in your talk, poster or at the talent show!

The CDM EDI Committee encourages all participants of the Annual Workshop to share something about your interests and/or hobbies in your presentation, poster or at the talent show at the dinner on the Thursday night. See details below:

Photography and permissions

We will be taking photographs throughout the workshop which may be put on the Centre website, social media or used in the annual report. Please notify the conference organisers if you do not wish for your image to be used.

Menus

Uploading presentations

Agenda

NOTE: the tables for the Agenda may be wider than your browser window. In this case, at the very end of the Agenda table for each day, there should be a horizontal scroll bar which will allow you to scroll across to the rest of the table. This horizontal scroll bar will be visible only when you are viewing the very end of each day’s Agenda.

Wednesday 20th November

Time (AEDT)		Topic / talk title	Presenter / details	Abstract	File

Time (AEDT)		Topic / talk title	Presenter / details	Abstract
7:00-9:00		Breakfast (for those staying the night before)
8:30-9:00	30	Registration (for those not registered on previous days) Arrival Tea & Coffee	Illawarra Gallery
9:00-9:30	30	Smoking Ceremony and Welcome to Country	The Deck	Local Traditional Owners and Elders will perform a smoking ceremony on the deck and a Welcome to Country
9:30-9:45	15	Welcome from Director and housekeeping	Elisabetta Barberio / Anita Vecchies
Session 1		Session Chair -
9:45-10:15	30	Keynote presentation - Primordial Black Holes and Dark Matter	James Dent
10:15-10:30	15	A tale of two experiments and the not-so-straight journey of scientific endeavour	Laura Manenti	“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” Dickens’ words well describe the reality of experimental physics, where success and failure often go hand in hand. In this talk, I will take you through the development and characterisation of one of the world's quietest sensors: a superconducting transition-edge sensor designed for a future dark matter experiment searching for dark photons. I will tell you about the path that led to the final experiment and its outcome, sharing the challenges encountered along the way and the behind-the-scenes moments not shared in the final published paper. Through this tale, I will show that in experimental physics, the norm is that things do not unfold as planned. Yet, it is precisely this unpredictability that makes the journey so exciting.
10:30-11:00	30 min	Morning Tea	Illawarra Gallery
Session 2		Session Chair -
11:00-11:30	30	Keynote presentation - Dark Matter Direct Detection	Luca Scotto Lavina
11:30-11:45	15	Dark Sector Searches at Belle/Belle II Experiment	Eiasha Waheed	The Belle and Belle II experiments are crucial for exploring the dark sector by searching for axion-like particles (ALPs) and heavy neutrinos, which may extend beyond the Standard Model. These searches focus on ALPs as potential dark matter candidates and study their decays, while also probing heavy neutrinos in B meson decays. With unprecedented sensitivity, Belle II pushes the boundaries on current dark matter and new physics searches, setting stringent limits on ALP couplings and neutrino properties.
11:45-12:00	15	SUPL and future opportunities	Sue Barrell
12:00-13:00	60 min	Lunch	Illawarra Gallery
Session 3		Session Chair -
13:00-15:00	120	EDI session - Collaborative Cultural Immersion	Speaking in Colour - will also serve as an opportunity to network and socialise whilst doing the activity
15:00-15:30	30 min	Afternoon Tea	Illawarra Gallery
Session 4		Session Chair -
15:30-15:45	15	Galaxy clusters: giant dark matter particle colliders	Ellen Sirks	Galaxy clusters are the largest gravitationally bound structures in the Universe. Because of their high density and local velocity dispersion, they are ideal environments for probing the nature of dark matter. The specific properties of dark matter can have great effects on both clusters as a whole as well as on the galaxies residing in them. In this seminar I will present my work studying some of the effects of self-interacting dark matter on simulated galaxy clusters. In addition, I will discuss how I will be studying these effects observationally using the balloon-borne SuperBIT telescope.
15:45-16:00	15	Development of Mass Spectrometry Techniques for Low Background Experiments	Dominik Koll	Mass spectrometry is the method of choice to determine radionuclide concentrations in detector materials for low background experiments if decay counting is not applicable. In this presentation, recent work to develop and optimise mass spectrometric techniques for the determination of radionuclides such as 40K, 129I, 210Pb or actindes will be discussed with focus on the future capabilities of the new Helmholtz Accelerator Mass Spectrometer Tracing Environmental Radionuclides (HAMSTER) facility.
16:00-16:15	15	Mental well-being in gravitational wave and high energy physics	Kamiel Janssens	Many people in academia struggle with their mental well-being due to the unique environment and conditions. However, at the same time many researchers love their fulfilling job. In a recent set of survey(s) we probed the general mental well-being of researchers in the field of gravitational waves (2021) and the wider High Energy/Astrophysics community (2022). We start by highlighting some of the key conclusions of these surveys. Is there any difference between the subsequent years? How resilient is the mental well-being of our collaborators? Tune in to learn about these and many other related topics!
16:15-16:30	15	Near-quantum limited axion dark matter search with the ORGAN experiment around 26 micro-eV	Graeme Flower	The latest iteration of the ORGAN experiment operated at millikelvin temperatures using a flux-driven Josephson parametric amplifier (JPA) for reduced noise, along with various other upgrades over previous iterations. Covering the 25.45−26.27 micro-eV mass range, this near-quantum limited phase of ORGAN employs a conducting rod resonator and a 7-T solenoidal magnet to place the most sensitive exclusion limits on axion-photon coupling in the range to date.
16:30-16:35	5	Stretch break
16:35-17:10	35	Student pitch / 3 min speed talks	TBC
17:10-1830	80	Poster Session	The Deck Full details here: https://darkmatteraustralia.atlassian.net/wiki/x/DAbMaw	Any student/postdoc who is not doing a talk should present a poster. We are also inviting recipients of CDM SI funding to present an update of their projects as a poster. Vote for your favourite poster here: https://forms.office.com/r/WmWx8wLVwE
18:00-19:00	60	Closed session - CDM Chief Investigators	Pacific 1

Thursday 21st November

Time (AEDT)		Topic / talk title	Presenter / Details	Abstract	File

Time (AEDT)		Topic / talk title	Presenter / Details	Abstract
7:00-9:00		Breakfast (for those staying the night before)
8:30-9:00am	30	Registration (for those not registered on previous days)	Illawarra Gallery
Session 1		Session Chair -
9:00-9:30	30	Keynote presentation - Indirect Dark Matter Detection	Aaron Vincent
9:30-10:45	75	CDM Research Theme Updates	Theme leaders (or delegates)
10:45-11:00	15	Group photo	Assemble at the bottom of the stairs to the North Bar
11:00-11:30	30 min	Morning Tea	Illawarra Gallery
Session 2		Session Chair -
11:30-12:30	60	Panel discussion	The future of dark matter research with a focus on quantum and astro
12:30-13:00	30	Education and Outreach Update	Jackie Bondell Victoria Millar
13:00-14:00	60 min	Lunch	Illawarra Gallery
Session 3		Session Chair -
14:00-15:00	60	Mentoring session	TBC
15:00-15:45	45 min	Afternoon Tea - EDI Committee meet and greet	Illawarra Gallery
Session 4		Session Chair -
15:45-16:00	15	Dark Matter Impacts, asteroids and primordial black holes	Jeremy Mould	Asteroid impacts have entered our consciousness as existential threats. What has been the impact of primordial black holes on the Galaxy's planets? Is there an anthropic constraint on PBH as dark matter?
16:00-16:15	15	Status of the SABRE South Experiment	Lachlan Milligan	SABRE aims to provide a model independent test of the signal observed by DAMA/LIBRA through two separate detectors that rely on joint ultra-high NaI(Tl) purity crystal R&D activities: SABRE South at SUPL Australia and SABRE North at LNGS Italy. Ultra-high purity crystals are immersed in a liquid scintillator veto, further surrounded by passive shielding and a plastic scintillator muon veto. Significant work has been undertaken to assess and mitigate background from the detector materials, and to understand the performance of both the crystal and veto systems. The SABRE South muon detectors were commissioned in SUPL this year, with measurements of muon flux and angular distribution ongoing. These are the first detectors to be commissioned in SUPL. The physics program of SABRE South is also being developed, with basic sensitivity studies having been performed. Assembly of SABRE South is planned for the coming year.
16:15-16:30	15	Asymmetric Dark Matter from semi-annihilation	Avirup Ghosh	Strong constraints from dark matter (DM) indirect detection observations have already shrunk the allowed parameter space for thermal WIMPs substantially. Asymmetric DM provides an alternative avenue to reconcile GeV-TeV scale DM with indirect detection observations. In this talk I shall show how a simple semi-annihilation like interaction can induce asymmetry in the DM which is further enhanced by the simple WIMP like pair-annihilation process. I shall also show how a concrete particle physics model allows such dynamics.
16:30-16:45	15	Two-Higgs Models: a Possible Dark Matter Portal and 95 GeV Anomaly Candidate	Navneet Krishnan	Two-Higgs Doublet Models are a class of well-motivated Beyond Standard Model extensions, able to answer existing questions about the Strong CP Problem and Matter-Antimatter Asymmetry. I investigate the application of these models with an additional scalar singlet as a portal to WIMP dark matter, and to a series of anomalies at 95GeV at the LHC and LEP.
16:45-17:00	15	An overview of CYGNUS' reach for dark matter and neutrino searches	Chiara Lisotti	As dark matter experiments grow in size and more of the available parameter space is investigated and excluded, it is necessary to plan ahead to circumvent the recently observed neutrino fog, which constitutes a near-irreducible background for an experiment sensitive to only recoil energy. The direction of the incoming flux of dark matter is unique, hence it provides a smoking-gun signal to unambiguously claim discovery; accessing this information would then make it possible to discern between dark matter and other sources. To accurately determine the origin of an incoming particle, a directional detector must be capable of resolving the spatial dimensions of the ionization tracks, for example micro-pattern gas detectors (MPGDs), which can be used as the readouts for gas time projection chamber (TPC)-based experiments; an example of such a set-up is CYGNUS. The CYGNUS consortium aims to build a global network of gas TPCs with both energy and directional sensitivity to reconstruct the signals event-by-event, to distinguish possible dark matter signals from the neutrino background from the Sun, as well as study the background itself and detect other feebly-interacting extraterrestrial particles. In this talk, I will give an overview of the physics potential of CYGNUS in terms of dark matter and neutrinos, and describe ongoing studies to derive the specifications needed to perform this search in future experiments.
17:00		Close
19:00-22:00		Workshop Dinner and Awards	The Deck

Friday 22nd November

Time (AEDT)		Topic / talk title	Presenter / Details	Abstract	File

Time (AEDT)		Topic / talk title	Presenter / Details	Abstract
7:00-9:00		Breakfast (for those staying the night before)
Session 1		Session Chair -
9:15-9:30	15		Anatoly Rozenfeld
9:30-9:45	15		Nicolas Beaupère
9:45-10:30	45	Innovation update plus feedback activity	Christine Thong plus extra facilitator TBC
10:30-11:00	30	Morning tea	Illawarra Gallery
Session 2
11:00-11:15	15	ECR Committee Update	Giorgio Busoni, Robert James, Victoria Bashu
11:15-11:30	15	Collider Phenomenology of t-channel mediated Dark Matter Model	Aman Desai	We present the phenomenology at the Large Hadron Collider of a class of simplified t-channel Dark Matter models, in which coloured mediators from a new physics sector couple to Dark Matter candidates and Standard Model quarks of different flavours. We consider various realisations of such a class of models, characterised by different configurations of mediator and dark matter spins. We discuss the collider bounds on the masses of mediator and dark matter in such configurations by recasting experimental data from ATLAS and CMS searches through MadAnalysis 5. We also consider the impact of Next-to-Leading-Order corrections in the QCD sector on the determination of the bounds. This work is part of a joint effort between theorists and experimentalists to provide guidelines and benchmarks for new analyses during LHC Run 3.
11:30-11:45	15	Using simulations of Milky Way analogues to test warm dark matter	Adam Ussing	Astrophysically, non-interacting dark matter is considered only by it's temperature, either cold or warm. Most models of galaxy formation work comfortably within a cold dark matter paradigm, but this isn't at the exclusion of all other models. We used tuned simulations of Milky Way type galaxies to produce similar observable satellite galaxy populations, and then search for differences in the dust. This has been shown to be possible for a single galaxy but we now test on a much larger sample.
11:45-12:00	15	Director closing remarks	Elisabetta Barberio
12:00-13:00	60	Lunch	Illawarra Gallery (packed lunch)

Supporting documents

Powerpoint presentation templates

Acknowledgement of Country

(Public) ARC CoE for Dark Matter Particle Physics