3:30–4:30 pm Zoom
Searching for Physics Beyond the Standard Model with Rockets and Nuclear Reactors
Enectali Figueroa, Northwestern
Astrophysics experiment
We know that the Standard Model of Particle Physics is not complete. Although extremely successful, the Standard Model does not account for the mass of neutrinos or the existence of dark matter, among other problems. Even though dark matter makes up 26% of the universe, we do not know what it is made of. At the same time, we don’t know why neutrinos have mass. One of the main mechanisms for neutrino mass predicts the existence of new particles called sterile neutrinos. If sterile neutrinos exist, some of them could make up the dark matter. Sterile neutrino dark matter could be detected through observations in space of X-rays produced in their decay into standard model particles. We detail a program to search for these dark matter signals in space using the Micro-X Rocket, a NASA-funded sounding rocket payload. Using the same detector technology, the Ricochet experiment will study neutrinos at a nuclear reactor through coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering. Both of these experiments search for physics beyond the standard model in the neutrino sector.