Topic: Effective theory for dark matter-bound electron scattering

Speaker: Prof. Yi Liao

Coordinates: PCFT C1124, 14:30, Thursday, January 9

Abstract: Dark matter particles of relatively low mass, say below 10 GeV, can be searched for through electron recoil in direct detection experiments. In this talk I’ll introduce our recently developed formalism for addressing dark matter-bound electron scattering. The event rate is generally a sum of three terms, each of which factorizes into a dark matter response function and a generalized atomic response function without cross dependence on dark particles and atomic properties. I’ll show by a series of effective theories, from nonrelativistic quantum mechanics for general two-body scattering to relativistic quantum effective field theories, how experimental data can be translated into constraints on effective interactions at various energy scales. As a specific application, I’ll demonstrate the constraint on an effective interaction that corrects a mistake previously made by both theory and experiment groups.