Searching for Dark Matter with the CMS detector at the Current and Future Large Hadron Collider (FWOODYS10)

One of the key questions in high-energy particle physics pertains the existence and the nature of the Dark Matter in the universe. The search for signatures of Dark-Matter production at colliders provides an exciting complementary avenue to the many ongoing searches trying to detect existing Dark-Matter through the interaction of these particles with ordinary matter. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is particularly well suited to explore the production of Dark Matter in its new energy regime. This project aims to define, develop and perform simplified benchmark analyses for the general search for Dark Matter with the CMS detector at the LHC, thereby covering an as large as possible set of theoretical models beyond the Standard Model of particle physics which may embed Dark-Matter candidates. The development of such a coherent approach towards Dark-Matter detection in CMS will happen through an interdisciplinary feedback with theorists and with experimentalists working in he field of astro-particle physics in the home institute and beyond. Secondly, the project aims to contribute to the online selection algorithms to ensure these searches can be performed when the LHC will in the future operate at the highest interaction rates. As such it will necessitate developments, driven by physics requirements, of innovative methods both on the side of readout electronics as well as reconstruction algorithms. The envisaged results of the Dark-Matter search will consist of either the discovery of Dark Matter, and subsequent study of its properties, or the most stringent limits from colliders to date and for a long time to come. The tracker project aims to lead to a key contribution in defining the physics potential of the upgraded CMS detector in the next decade.

Keywords:Physics

Disciplines:Quantum physics not elsewhere classified, Classical physics