Special Physics Colloquium

Dr. David Craig Moore, Stanford University

"Low energy probes of high energy physics"

4:00pm, RLM 11.204

Abstract: "Low energy" probes of particle physics, which do not rely on producing high energy collisions in accelerators, are becoming increasingly important in searches for new physics beyond the Standard Model.  These experiments can provide unique tests of some of the most important outstanding problems in particle physics, including identifying the nature of dark matter and dark energy as well as the mechanism by which neutrinos acquire mass.  

I will discuss two such experiments, both of which have substantial potential to observe physics beyond the Standard Model in the coming years. First, I will describe the Enriched Xenon Observatory (EXO), which is searching for neutrinoless double beta decay using large, liquid Xe time projection chambers.  Observation of this lepton number violating decay would demonstrate that neutrinos are Majorana particles and could allow determination of the absolute neutrino mass scale.  Second, I will discuss the development of novel techniques to search for short-range forces using optically levitated dielectric microspheres in vacuum.  These techniques can enable extremely sensitive searches for new forces at micron length scales, probing large areas of previously unexplored parameter space in models that could account for dark matter, dark energy, or the microscopic nature of gravity.  In both cases, I will describe recent results from existing experiments utilizing these techniques and prospects for next-generation searches for new physics.