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.
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.
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.
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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!
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:
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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 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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 | ||
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 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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) |
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