Speaker
Description
The age of WIMP-like dark matter direct detection is drawing to a close due to their non-detection at exquisitely sensitive liquid-noble detectors. However, models where the dark matter is lighter than the mass of a proton remain largely inaccessible to experimental probes. Recently, molecular targets have emerged as particularly well-suited detector materials to look for this sub-GeV dark matter. In this talk, I will review the latest development in molecule-based detection techniques. Then, I will show how the theoretical basis of these detection strategies can be applied to astrophysical objects in order to probe previously unexplored parameter space. In particular, I will present powerful new constraints on sub-GeV dark matter from molecular signatures in Jupiter and other solar system planets. Then, I will show how similar considerations applied to cold molecular clouds in the milky way are used to derive some of the strongest constraints on strongly-coupled subcomponent dark matter.
