Hamburg 2016 – scientific programme
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T: Fachverband Teilchenphysik
T 87: Eingeladene Vorträge III
T 87.4: Semi-Invited Talk
Thursday, March 3, 2016, 15:15–15:45, VMP4 Audimax 1
Probing low mass dark matter with the CRESST direct search — •Federica Petricca for the CRESST collaboration — Max-Planck-Institut für Physik, Föhringer Ring 6, D-80805 München
In this era of precision cosmology we know that dark matter constitutes about 85% of the matter in the Universe, although its nature is still unknown. Direct dark matter searches apply a great variety of different detector technologies, all aiming to observe dark matter particles via their elastic scattering off nuclei in their detectors. Cryogenic experiments currently provide the best sensitivity for light dark matter particles, with the CRESST-II experiment advancing to the sub-GeV/c2 dark matter particle mass regime.
The CRESST target consists of scintillating CaWO4 crystals operated as cryogenic calorimeters at millikelvin temperatures. The low energy thresholds of these detectors, combined with the presence of light nuclei in the target material, allow to probe the low-mass region of the parameter space for spin-independent dark matter-nucleon scattering with high sensitivity.
In this contribution we present results of the latest measurement campaign. With 52kg live days and a threshold for nuclear recoils of 307eV we obtain an unprecedented sensitivity for light dark matter, extending the reach of direct dark matter searches to the sub-GeV/c2 region. Currently, CRESST-III is on its way, featuring detectors consequently optimized for the measurement of very small energy deposits to further explore the low-mass region. We will report on the status of the experiment and give an outlook on the anticipated sensitivity.