Cosmic-ray antideuteron searches, Philip von Doetinchem (UH Manoa)

Thursday Apr 14, 2016, 3:15 PM → 4:45 PM Pacific/Honolulu

WAT 112 (Watanabe Hall)

Recent years have seen increased theoretical and experimental effort towards the first-ever detection of cosmic-ray antideuterons, in particular as an indirect signature of dark matter annihilation or decay. In contrast to indirect dark matter searches using positrons, antiprotons, or gamma-rays, which suffer from relatively high and uncertain astrophysical backgrounds, searches with antideuterons benefit from very suppressed conventional backgrounds, offering a potential breakthrough in unexplored phase space for dark matter. The presentation will review dark matter theories that can be probed with antideuterons, the challenges to predictions and interpretations of antideuteron signals, and the experimental efforts towards cosmic antideuteron detection.