2024 CDM Annual Workshop
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 and WiFi code
- 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 at all times (including during independent social activities and drinks outside of the formal program schedule). 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.
Getting to the Novotel Northbeach, in North Wollongong
General information and social script
For more information about the workshop, venue and activities see the attached.
Social Script:
We recommend watching in presentation mode.
Zoom details and WiFi code
Click here to join the meeting and if prompted for a password, please enter 976178
Need to dial-in instead? Enter the meeting ID: 873 7107 9099 via +61 3 7018 2005 or +61 2 8015 6011
The WiFi code is Northbeach
COVID-19 and health protocols for all in-person attendees - please read
EDI Snippet - Share your interests and/or hobbies in your talk, poster or at the talent show!
Photography and permissions
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 |
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7:00-9:00 |
| Breakfast (for those staying the night before) | Pallisade Kitchen and Bar |
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8:30-9:00 | 30 | Registration (for those not registered on previous days) Arrival Tea & Coffee | Illawarra Gallery |
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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 |
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9:30-9:45 | 15 | Welcome from Director and housekeeping | Elisabetta Barberio / Anita Vecchies |
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Session 1 |
| Session Chair - Nicole Bell |
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9:45-10:15 | 30 | Keynote presentation - Primordial Black Holes as Dark Matter | James Dent | Primordial black holes in the mass window of roughly 10^{17} g - 10^{22} g can possibly account for all of dark matter, but probing this parameter space presents interesting phenomenolgical challenges. In this talk I will discuss possible signals from such a population due to Hawking evaporation, a variety of gravitational wave production mechanisms, and superradiance. |
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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. |
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10:30-11:00 | 30 min | Morning Tea | Illawarra Gallery |
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Session 2 |
| Session Chair - Ray Volkas |
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11:00-11:30 | 30 | Keynote presentation - Status and perspectives of Direct Dark Matter searches | Luca Scotto Lavina | The existence of dark matter in the Universe is one of the most fascinating missions of modern physics. While there is overwhelming indirect evidence about its existence, enough to let our community to adopt dark matter as an essential part of the standard cosmological model, direct search experiments are essential to uncover its nature. The hunt for dark matter is mapping out new territories every year, thanks to a plethora of experimental techniques and by scoping many particle models, from the still-best-motivated WIMP to more exotic ones. This talk reviews the most recent experimental techniques, especially those conducted with low background detectors in underground laboratories, their results and projects to the future. |
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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. |
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11:45-12:00 | 15 | SUPL Status Report | Sue Barrell | An overview of the status and aspirations of SUPL as an open access research facility. The presentation will cover the evolution of the SUPL team and our partnerships, and an update on the research projects planned for installation and the potential future diversity of research in SUPL. Progress on readying the facility for research projects will be summarised, as will processes for research project approval and personnel access. Finally, some outreach highlights will be shared. |
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12:00-13:00 | 60 min | Lunch | Illawarra Gallery |
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Session 3 |
| Session Chairs - Anita Vecchies & Jade McKenzie |
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13:00-15:00 | 120 | EDI session: Cultural Immersion - Interwoven | Speaking in Colour
| A unique, hands-on cultural immersion experience, led by Aboriginal artist and educator Cherie Johnson. In this session, participants will explore the art of traditional Aboriginal weaving—learning the how, when, and why behind this intricate practice. This fun and relaxed session offers insight into the rich heritage and significance of weaving in Aboriginal culture. Each participant will have the chance to create a contemporary woven keepsake (bracelet) and contribute to a collaborative artwork. Note: Spaces for this session are limited. There are 90 spots in total. If you are unable to sign up, you can go onto the waitlist by emailing Jade McKenzie. |
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15:00-15:30 | 30 min | Afternoon Tea | Illawarra Gallery |
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Session 4 |
| Session Chair - Andrew Stuchbery |
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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. |
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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. |
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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! |
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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. |
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16:30-18:00 | 90 | 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 |
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17:30-19:00 | 90 | Closed session - CDM Chief Investigators | Pacific 1 |
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Thursday 21st November
Time (AEDT) |
| Topic / talk title | Presenter / Details | Abstract | File |
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7:00-9:00 |
| Breakfast (for those staying the night before) | Pallisade Kitchen and Bar |
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8:30-9:00am | 30 | Registration (for those not registered on previous days) | Illawarra Gallery |
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Session 1 |
| Session Chair - Geoff Taylor |
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9:00-9:30 | 30 | Keynote presentation - Catalyzing supermassive black hole formation with dark matter | Aaron Vincent | Quasars observed at redshifts ∼6−7.5 were powered by supermassive black holes which are too large to have grown from early stellar remnants without efficient super-Eddington accretion, and recent observations from JWST hint that our understanding of early star formation is incomplete. I will discuss these findings, and recent work that has examined the possible effects of dark matter annihilation and decay on the collapse of the very first gas clouds, and how this may have affected the first stars, and seeded the first supermassive black holes. |
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9:30-10:45 | 75 | CDM Research Theme Updates |
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10:45-11:00 | 15 | Group photo | Assemble at the bottom of the stairs to the North Bar |
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11:00-11:30 | 30 min | Morning Tea | Illawarra Gallery |
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Session 2 |