The striking evidence for the existence of dark matter in the Universe implies that there is new physics to be discovered beyond the Standard Model. To identify the nature of this dark matter is a key task for modern astroparticle physics, and a large number of experiments pursuing a range of different search strategies have been developed to solve it. The topic of this thesis is the complementarity of these different experiments and the issue of how to combine the information from different searches independently of experimental and theoretical uncertainties. The first part focuses on the direct detection of dark matter scattering in nuclear recoil detectors, with a special emphasis on the impact of the assumed velocity distribution of Galactic dark matter particles. By converting experimental data to variables that make the astrophysical unknowns explicit, different experiments can be compared without implicit assumptions concerning the dark matter halo. We extend this framework to include annual modulation signals and apply it to recent experimental hints for dark matter, showing that the tension between these results and constraints from other experiments is independent of astrophysical uncertainties. We explore possible ways of ameliorating this tension by changing our assumptions on the properties of dark matter interactions. In this context, we propose a new approach for inferring the properties of the dark matter particle, which does not require any assumptions about the structure of the dark matter halo. A particularly interesting option is to study dark matter particles that couple differently to protons and neutrons (so-called isospin-violating dark matter). Such isospin-violation arises naturally in models where the vector mediator is the gauge boson of a new U(1) that mixes with the Standard Model gauge bosons. In the second part, we first discuss the case where both the Z' and the dark matter particle have a mass of a few GeV and then turn to the case where the Z' is significantly heavier. While the former case is most strongly constrained by precision measurements from LEP and B-factories, the latter scenario can be probed with great sensitivity at the LHC using monojet and monophoton searches, as well as searches for resonances in dijet, dilepton and diboson final states. Finally, we study models of dark matter where loop contributions are important for a comparison of LHC searches and direct detection experiments. This is the case for dark matter interactions with Yukawa-like couplings to quarks and for interactions that lead to spin-dependent or momentum suppressed scattering cross sections at tree level. We find that including the contribution from heavy-quark loops can significantly alter the conclusions obtained from a tree-level analysis.

L'un des problèmes les plus intéressants de la physique moderne est celui de la matière noire de l'Univers, qui reste de nature insaisissable. L'existence de la matière noire est inférée par des preuves indirectes telles que les mesures des courbes de rotation des galaxies, des dispersions de vitesse des galaxies dans les amas galactiques et les effets de lentille gravitationnelle. Ces observations fournissent des preuves sur l'existence d'une matière invisible dominant notre Univers. Il n'existe cependant aucune indication claire sur sa nature. Les observations actuelles en font le constituant dominant de l'Univers, par opposition à la matière baryonique "normale". Deux solutions sont proposées pour résoudre ce mystère. La première est basée sur une modification de la loi de la gravité comme dans la dynamique newtonienne modifiée qui pourrait expliquer les divergences entre prédictions et observations de la dynamique des masses dans l'Univers. L'autre idée consiste à proposer l'existence d'une nouvelle particule massive qui n'interagit pas avec la lumière (appelée WIMP pour "Weakly Interactive Massive Particle"), mais pouvant influencer la matière lumineuse par gravité. Plusieurs théories proposent l'existence de telles nouvelles particules. La plus célèbre de ces théories est la supersymétrie, qui est une extension du Modèle Standard de la Physique des Particules. Si l'un des partenaires supersymétriques des bosons neutres est une particule stable et le plus léger de tous les superpartenaires, il devient alors un candidat idéal pour la matière noire. La supersymétrie est en général le cadre le plus favorable pour l'existence de la matière noire. / The early history of modern physics have been full of problems fixed with un-orthodox yet brilliant solutions. From the Hydrogen electron orbit, black bodyradiation and the ultraviolet catastrophe, to the perihelion precession of Mercury.Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity not only solved these problems butthey opened the path to new observations and predictions about the Universe welive in and the introduction of new problems to be solved.One of the more modern problems we are facing today in physics is the largediscrepancy among measurements of the visible mass in the Universe and the pre-dictions of laws of gravity. An indisputable mass of evidence from different partsof observational cosmology is showing again and again that the observed lumi-nous mass in the Universe constitutes a tiny fraction of the matter that actuallyexists. The proposed solutions of this problem comes in two completely differentflavors. One proposed solution is that the laws of gravity are not the same in thelimit of tiny accelerations. Theories of modified gravitational dynamics proposea non-linear term in Newton law of gravity that becomes relevant at small accel-erations which in turn can explains the missing matter. The other solution to themissing matter is the introduction of new type of matter that does not interact withlight, making it invisible yet inferred to exist by its gravitational effect. The newmatter becomes a new elementary particle to be added to list of already knownelementary particles. While there are many candidates to this new elementaryparticle the favored one is called a WIMP or Weakly Interacting Massive Particle.

Das Antarctic Muon And Neutrino Detector Array (AMANDA) ist ein Cherenkov Detektor, der sich im Gletscher der Antarktis am Südpol befindet. Wir präsentieren die Analyse von Daten, die in den Jahren 2000 bis 2004 gesammelt wurden, die einer effektiven Detektorlaufzeit von 1001 Tagen entsprechen. Die Suche zielt auf den Nachweis von elektomagnetische und hadronische Teilchenschauern, so gennante Kaskaden, die durch Elektron- und Tauneutrinowechselwirkung produziert werden können. Die hadronischen Kaskaden können auch über neutrale Ströme Wechselwirkung von Neutrinos aller Arten produziert werden. Der Kaskadenkanal hat einige Vorteile in der Suche nach einem diffusen Fluss von astrophysikalischen Neutrinos. Durch die gute Energieauflösung des AMANDA Detektors kann man zwischen einem harten astrophysikalische Spektrum und einem weichen atmosphärischen Spektrum unterscheiden. Außerdem ist der atmosphärischen Elektronneutrinos Fluss um eine Gößenordnung kleiner als der atmosphärische Myonneutrinofluss. Der Untergrund von atmosphärischem Myonen aus Luftschauern kann unterdrückt werden, weil diese als Spuren im Detektor erscheinen und leicht zu identifizieren sind. Mit der hohen Untergrundunterdrückung ist es möglich die Analyse über einen Raumwinkel von 4pi für Energien gegen 50 TeV zu erstrecken. Die Anzahl von gefundenen Ereignissen in dieser Analyse stimmt mit der Erwartung von Hintergrundereignissen überein. Deshalb berechnen wir eine obere Grenze für den diffusen Neutrinofluss aller Neutrinoarten, unter der Annahme, dass alle Neutrinoarten im Verhältnis 1:1:1 auftreten. Die obere Grenze für einen Nuetrinofluss im Energiebereich von 40 TeV bis 9 PeV mit einem Spektrum von E-2 ist 3.96x10-7 GeV s-1 sr-1 cm-2 bei einem Konfidenzniveau von 90%. Dies ist momentan die niedrigste Grenze für einen diffusen Neutrinoflüss aller Neutrinoarten. / The Antarctic Muon And Neutrino Detector Array (AMANDA) is a Cherenkov detector deployed in the Antarctic ice cap at the South Pole. We present the analysis of the AMANDA data collected during 1001 effective days of the detector lifetime be tween the years 2000 and 2004. We focus our search on electromagnetic and hadronic cascades which are produced in charged-current interactions of high-energy electron or tau neutrinos and in neutral-current interactions of neutrinos of any flavor. There are several advantages associated with the cascade channel in the search for a "diffuse" flux of astrophysical neutrinos. The AMANDA''s energy resolution allows us to distinguish between a hard astrophysical spectrum and a soft atmospheric spectrum. In addition, the flux of atmospheric electron neutrinos is lower than that of atmospheric muon neutrinos by one order of magnitude, and the background from downward-going atmospheric muons can be suppressed due to their track-like topology. The low background in this channel allows us to attain a 4pi acceptance above energies of about 50 TeV. The number of events observed in this analysis is consistent with the background expectations. Therefore, we calculate an upper limit on the diffuse all-flavor neutrino flux assuming a flavor ratio 1:1:1 at the detection site. A flux of neutrinos with a spectrum falling as E-2 is limited to 3.96x10-7 GeV s-1 sr-1 cm-2 at 90% C.L. for a neutrino energy range spanning from 40 TeV to 9 PeV. This upper limit is currently the most sensitive limit on the diffuse all-flavor astrophysical neutrino flux.

The PAMELA satellite experiment will soon be launched and during its 3 year mission perform measurement of charged particle fluxes in the cosmic radiation. PAMELA is specifically designed to identify antiprotons and positrons in the vast background of other charged particles. These antiparticle measurements will be performed using: a permanent magnet spectrometer, a scintillator based time of flight system, an electromagnetic imaging calorimeter, a transition radiation detector and a scintillator triggered neutron detector. There is also a scintillator based anticoincidence system to reject spurious triggers from out of acceptance events (developed and built at KTH). These detectors will allow the background in the antiproton and positron measurements to be significantly reduced, and PAMELA will thus be able to perform high precision measurements with unprecedented statistics and over a wide energy range, far surpassing any previous experiment. To determine the antiparticle identification and background rejection capability of the experiment, studies have been performed using simulations and data collected at particle beams. These studies have focused on: the proton rejection in positron measurements (using the calorimeter), contamination by locally produced pions in antiproton measurements and estimations of the expected statistics due to the energy dependence (caused by e.g. the geomagnetic field and the magnetic field in the spectrometer) of the gathering power. This work significantly extends previous studies of the PAMELA performance in antiparticle identification.

<p>The PAMELA satellite experiment will soon be launched and during its 3 year mission perform measurement of charged particle fluxes in the cosmic radiation. PAMELA is specifically designed to identify antiprotons and positrons in the vast background of other charged particles. These antiparticle measurements will be performed using: a permanent magnet spectrometer, a scintillator based time of flight system, an electromagnetic imaging calorimeter, a transition radiation detector and a scintillator triggered neutron detector. There is also a scintillator based anticoincidence system to reject spurious triggers from out of acceptance events (developed and built at KTH). These detectors will allow the background in the antiproton and positron measurements to be significantly reduced, and PAMELA will thus be able to perform high precision measurements with unprecedented statistics and over a wide energy range, far surpassing any previous experiment. To determine the antiparticle identification and background rejection capability of the experiment, studies have been performed using simulations and data collected at particle beams. These studies have focused on: the proton rejection in positron measurements (using the calorimeter), contamination by locally produced pions in antiproton measurements and estimations of the expected statistics due to the energy dependence (caused by e.g. the geomagnetic field and the magnetic field in the spectrometer) of the gathering power. This work significantly extends previous studies of the PAMELA performance in antiparticle identification.</p>

The IceCube Neutrino Observatory has reported the observation of 35 neutrino events above 30 TeV with evidence for an astrophysical neutrino flux using data collected from May 2010 to May 2013. These events provide the first high-energy astrophysical neutrino flux ever observed. The sources of these events are currently unknown. IceCube has looked for correlations between these events and a list of TeV photon sources including a catalog of 36 galactic sources and 42 extragalactic sources, correlations with the galactic plane and center, and spatial and temporal clustering. These searches have shown no significant correlations. The isotropic distribution of the event directions gives indications that the events could be extragalactic in nature and therefore may originate in the same processes that generate ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs). The sources of these UHECRs are still unknown; however, gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) have been proposed as one possible source class. By determining the source of these high-energy neutrinos, it may be possible to determine the sources of UHECRs as well. This study is a search for directional and temporal correlation between 856 GRBs and the astrophysical neutrino flux observed by IceCube. Nearly 10,000 expanding time windows centered on the earliest reported time of the burst were examined. The time windows start at ±10 s and extend to ±15 days. We find no evidence of correlations for these time windows and set an upper limit on the fraction of the astrophysical flux that can be attributed to the observed GRBs as a function of the time window. GRBs can contribute at most 12% of the astrophysical neutrino flux if the neutrino-GRB correlation time is less than ≈20 hours, and no more than 38% of the astrophysical neutrino flux can be attributed to the known GRBs at time scales up to 15 days. We conclude that GRBs observable by satellites are not solely responsible for IceCube’s astrophysical neutrino flux, even if very long correlation time scales are assumed.

The detection of high-energy neutrinos in the E &gt; O(PeV) range requires newdetection techniques in order to cope with the decreasing flux. The radio detectionmethod uses Askaryan emission to detect these neutrinos. The propagation of theradio pulses has to be modeled carefully in order to estimate the properties of theneutrinos from the detected radio pulse. This report introduces a model whichwas implemented to the NuRadioMC code to simulate birefringence effects in theice of the South Pole. To do that, a new ice model was created which combinesthe density and directional dependence on the refractive index. With this icemodel and an analytical ray tracer the time delay and polarization resulting frombirefringence was simulated for different geometries. A directional dependenceon the magnitude of the time delay and the change of the polarization along thepropagation path was found. To model the mixing of the polarization states dueto this change in polarization a pulse propagation model was introduced. Timedelay calculations resulting from this model were compared to simulations andmeasurements from the ARA experiment and have shown good agreement.

<p>The energy threshold of liquid xenon detectors is driven by the requirements of observing a scintillation signal as well as a large ionization signal. Observing both allows powerful background rejection, but limits the sensitivity below O(10 GeV/c²). Removing the requirement of having a scintillation signal, the threshold for light dark matter can be pushed lower. One limitation to the light dark matter search in XENON1T was single- and few-electron backgrounds that were not well understood. A dedicated analysis was performed to understand these backgrounds and event selections were developed to mitigate them.  This thesis presents details of the characterization and results from a search for light dark matter using only the single- and few-electron ionization signals in the XENON1T detector.</p> <p><br></p> <p>These liquid xenon detectors are leading in sensitivity to search for rare events. With various detector upgrades, XENONnT has improved sensitivity to low-energy interactions with signals as low as a single detected electron. This allows XENONnT to be able to detect neutrinos of all flavors from potential Galactic supernovae via coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering (CEvNS). This thesis presents an overview of the capability of XENONnT to detect supernova neutrinos via CEvNS. This allows XENONnT to be the first direct detection dark matter experiment to directly participate in the SuperNova Early Warning System.</p>

京都大学 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(理学) / 甲第23702号 / 理博第4792号 / 新制||理||1686(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院理学研究科物理学・宇宙物理学専攻 / (主査)准教授 窪 秀利, 教授 鶴 剛, 教授 中家 剛 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Science / Kyoto University / DGAM

The identity of dark matter is one of the key outstanding problems in both particle and astrophysics. In this thesis, I describe a number of complementary searches for particle dark matter. I discuss how the impact of dark matter on stars can constrain its interaction with nuclei, focussing on main sequence stars close to the Galactic Centre, and on the first stars as seen through the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope. The mass and annihilation cross-section of dark matter particles can be probed with searches for gamma rays produced in astronomical targets. Dwarf galaxies and ultracompact, primordially-produced dark matter minihalos turn out to be especially promising in this respect. I illustrate how the results of these searches can be combined with constraints from accelerators and cosmology to produce a single global fit to all available data. Global fits in supersymmetry turn out to be quite technically demanding, even with the simplest predictive models and the addition of complementary data from a bevy of astronomical and terrestrial experiments; I show how genetic algorithms can help in overcoming these challenges. / At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 5: Accepted. Paper 6: Submitted.