Novel strategies to fully exploit direct detection and LHC dark matter searches

Dark matter is a mysterious form of matter that is not visible by eye but which accounts for about 85% of the matter in the Universe. After decades of experimental effort, we have reached the point where most of the best-motivated candidates are within reach of current or upcoming experiments. It seems likely that we are on the threshold of a major discovery that will revolutionise our understanding of dark matter.

Dark matter consists of an entirely new type of subatomic particle that we know nothing about. The existence of dark matter can be inferred from its gravitational effects on the motion of celestial objects. This is an old technique that is reminiscent of the approach used by Le Verrier in the 1800s to successfully predict the existence and position of Neptune in order to explain irregularities in the orbit of Uranus. Unfortunately the gravitational effects do not provide us with any information that we would normally use to characterise a new particle. My research is focussed on finding answers to basic questions about this new particle such as: How heavy is it? Does it feel any of the fundamental forces of nature? How does it fit into the rest of our picture of particle physics?

I work closely with experimental colleagues to suggest novel searches and new techniques to interpret the data from their experiments. It is crucial to combine results from multiple experiments since a convincing detection of dark matter is likely to require a positive detection in several different experiments. I will use results from two specially designed experiments to answer these questions. Dark matter can be detected with experiments deep underground that search for signs of the rare collision between a dark matter particle and a xenon nucleus, or can be produced directly in collisions of protons at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. The ultimate aim of my research is to ensure that we maximise the amount of information gained from these experiments so that we can pin down the properties of the dark matter particle.

What I find so exciting about this research area is that it not only poses a huge question - what are the properties of most of the matter in the Universe? - but that we are fortunate to live in a time when we have the experimental capability to resolve it.

My research is frontier science, connecting physics at the smallest subatomic scales to the workings of the whole Universe. The detection of dark matter would revolutionise particle physics, astrophysics and cosmology.