Speakers: Peter Lewis (University of Hawaii) The Belle II experiment has been collecting data since 2019. The physics program of the experiment is very broad and depends on collecting as much data as possible. This necessitates operation at unprecedented luminosity, which will require extensive accelerator and detector upgrades scheduled for 2032. I will survey the planned ... Read more
Speakers: Prof. JoAnne Hewett (StonyBrook) Discovered a decade ago, the Higgs boson offers a unique portal into the laws of nature and any small deviation in its expected properties would constitute a major breakthrough. The full discovery potential of the Higgs will be unleashed by percent and sub-percent level precision studies of the Higgs properties. Such measurements ... Read more
Speakers: Prof. Nicholas Rodd (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) In this talk I'll describe how a magnet can be used as a Weber bar for the detection of gravitational waves. The concept is applicable to a broad class of magnets, but can be particularly well exploited by the powerful magnets being deployed in search of axion dark matter, ... Read more
Speakers: Prof. Ralf Kaiser (University of Hawaii, W M Keck Center for Astrochemistry) Over the past decade, a paradigm shift has emerged in astrochemistry: complex organic molecules can form efficiently in the coldest regions of space. Ice-coated interstellar grains are now recognized as molecular factories that drive the synthesis of biorelevant species within cold molecular ... Read more
Speakers: Prof. Shawn Westerdale (University of California, Riverside) The Global Argon Dark Matter Collaboration (GADMC) is the union of the ArDM, DarkSide, DEAP, and MiniCLEAN dark matter direct detection experiments, aiming to fully explore the experimentally accessible dark matter parameter space down to the neutrino fog. This talk will discuss the status, latest results, and ... Read more
Speakers: Philip von Doetinchem (University of Hawaii) The precise measurement of cosmic-ray antinuclei is an important means of identifying the nature of dark matter and other beyond-standard-model physics. Recent years have shown that identifying the nature of dark matter with cosmic-ray positrons and antiprotons is difficult, and this has led to a significantly increased interest ... Read more
Speakers: Sven Vahsen (University of Hawaii) Why does a world governed by quantum mechanics look classical on everyday scales? One of the central ideas in addressing this question is quantum decoherence. In this colloquium, I will introduce these ideas from the perspective of experimental particle physics, at a level intended to be accessible to physics ... Read more
Speakers: Dr Isabelle Goldstein (Texas A&M University) The stellar kinematics in dwarf galaxies can provide a wealth of information about its underlying dark matter distribution. Line-of-sight velocity dispersion measurements from six classical dwarf galaxies can be used to show that axion-like particles with masses of order m ~ 10^(−22) eV are inconsistent with the potential distribution in ... Read more
Speakers: Tongyan Lin (University of California, San Diego) Stellar streams are a promising way to probe the gravitational effects of low-mass dark matter (DM) subhalos. In recent years, there has been a remarkable explosion in the number of stellar streams detected in the Milky Way, and hundreds more may be discovered with future surveys such ... Read more
Speakers: Peter Sorensen (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) I will discuss recent results from PandaX, XENONnT and LZ, with an emphasis on the effect of instrumental backgrounds on the recent physics searches. I will then discuss recent results from the TESSERACT Collaboration, again emphasizing the effect of instrumental backgrounds and the so-called low-energy excess (LEE). I ... Read more
Speakers: Asst. Prof. Niels Bidault (University of Hawaii at Manoa) The electron beam linear accelerator (linac) at the Free Electron Laser (FEL) Laboratory at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa is currently undergoing recommissioning. The facility was originally installed and operated under the direction of Prof. John Madey, pioneer of FEL science. The accelerator provides ... Read more
Speakers: Dr Shawn Dubey (Brown University) Machine Learning (ML) has advanced rapidly over the past decade, transforming the way data-intensive sciences are conducted. High energy physics is distinctive among the physical sciences in its early adoption and deployment of new AI/ML methods, driven by extreme data volumes, complex event structures, and stringent real-time constraints. In ... Read more