High Energy Physics Seminar
The DAMIC experiment exploits the exceptional energy and spatial
resolution of charge coupled devices (CCDs) to search for dark matter
particles scattering in silicon. I present the latest results from the 11
kg-day exposure collected with the DAMIC experiment at SNOLAB, which
includes major improvements in the understanding of bulk and surface
backgrounds down to energies as low as 50 eV. In addition to producing
competitive limits on dark matter scattering, DAMIC finds a small excess
near threshold over the background prediction. DAMIC-M will build on the
success of DAMIC at SNOLAB to further probe this excess of events using
lower threshold Skipper CCDs, lower backgrounds, and increased exposure.
The first low background prototype detector for DAMIC-M will produce
world-leading limits on dark matter scattering within the next year.