The SSI projects are a new element introduced in 2013, designed to engage students and postdocs on topics related to the theme of an SSI. Participants will be grouped into teams. The teams will work during the Institute and give a report during the project concluding the presentation session on August 14. For larger projects with many interested participants and potential different directions of investigations, forming separate teams could be considered. The results from last year's SSI-2013 project presentation session on Jul/18/13 and SLAC Today report on SSI-2013 mini-projects can be a useful reference on how the process worked.
Please signup to the projects using Google Doc forms (view current signup) by selecting two choices. Some of the projects may not have enough signups to reach critical mass for a team and in which case we can regroup based on your second choices for the eventual teams. Please check the Column "Final assignment" in the Google Doc to be sure the project assignment for you is correct. In case not, please E-mail us to fix it.
Each team should nominate presenter(s) and E-mail us presenter's CERN Indico ID (if already exist), or E-mail address to initiaite a new Indico ID, before 3pm Wednesday Aug/13. The speaker's info page explains how the Indico upload works. Those without an Indico ID could jump ahead with request a lightweight CERN ID online first. For the Thursday project presentation session, each team has a total of 18min including 3-4mins for questions so that presentations should be no more than ~13-14min. Given the rapid exchange needed for the session, presentations should be uploaded to Indico by 1:45pm on Thursday Aug/14 and we will use the Auditorium console computer for display whenever possible although special displays really needs you own laptop will be considered.
Design a direct detection experiment that can search for WIMPS below the neutrino floor.
Suppose a dark matter signal is observed in a direct detection experiment (choose your favorite one!) Can you learn anything about the velocity distribution of the dark matter halo with a follow up experiment using *the same technique*? Alternatively, what different experiment would you do to simultaneously put the strongest constraint on both the mass and velocity distribution?
LCDM makes many specific predictions for the structure formation and the properties of dark matter halos. Use the dark sky simulations to devise a specific prediction from LCDM that can be measured. * KIPAC postdoc Sam Skillman is available in person or by email to help if your group has questions about accessing the simulations.
Design an experiment to extend the search reach for dark photons.
How can we conclusively distinguish a signal for DM in indirect detection from possible astrophysical sources? For example, what would you do to conclusively show that the Fermi Galactic Center excess is due to dark matter annihilation and not astrophysical processes?
How does the CP violating phase in the lepton sector, delta, possibly relate to leptogenesis?
Assume all of the DM in universe decays with lifetime > Hubble time. Given a few targets, for example: clusters, dwarf spheroidals, the Milky Way, M31, and the diffuse background (Galactic and Extragalactic), predict where and at what wavelength a signal will most likely be seen first.
The Higgs might decay into DM, resulting in an invisible width of the Higgs. How would such a decay be measured?
Can MOND be either proved or disproved?
If the LHC sees an excess of missing transverse energy (E_T), how would you confirm that DM has been discovered?
Current DM direct detection experiment loose sensitivity below a few GeV in mass. What can be done, if anything, to extend this search coverage down to 100's of MeV?
Can the 14 TeV LHC close the window on WIMP DM, or is a higher energy machine required?
Is there a maximum mass for a DM particle?
If the Fermi GC excess is a real DM signal due to WIMP annihilation into B-Bar pairs, what followup experiments would you perform to verify its existence and determine its properties?
The DAMA experiment sees a statistically significant annual modulation that is not confirmed by other more sensitive experiments using different nuclei. Develop a hypothesis for the source of this.
If axions make up 20% of the dark matter and WIMPs make up 80% of the dark matter, how would we know?
There are persistent suggestions that CDM has trouble explaining the small-scale
structure of galaxies (for example, the inner rotation curves of galaxies -- sometimes called
"the cusp-core issue", the numbers and velocities of massive substructures -- sometimes called the
"too big to fail" problem).
What observations or measurements would you do to most
conclusively distinguish between dark matter solutions to
these issues (e.g. WDM, SIDM, etc) vs. other solutions (e.g.
the impact of baryons on the density distributions;
statistical or observational issues)?
What measurement(s) would you use to conclusively rule out *all* Warm Dark Matter models? If the next generation of measurements of the power spectrum showed clear deviations from CDM and were consistent with WDM, what *other* measurement would you do to conclusively
What measurement(s) would you do to conclusively distinguish between decaying dark matter and a stable dark matter particle?
What measurement can you make to robustly constrain the slope of the density profile of the Milky Way in the inner 1 kpc?