Conférence du vendredi 9 octobre 2026

From ALPs to 'ZILLAS: Discovering Dark Matter In Novel Laboratories  - Gordan Krnjaic (Fermilab)

Abstract: Although the astrophysical evidence for the existence of dark matter is overwhelming, its microscopic properties remain elusive, despite decades of dedicated searches for the dominant weakly-interacting massive particle (WIMP) paradigm. In light of this experimental situation, there has recently been a surge of activity to broaden the search program by utilizing previously overlooked strategies, which leverage novel terrestrial and cosmic laboratories to probe dark matter beyond the WIMP framework. I will survey some of these ideas and present a road map towards greatly expanding our coverage of well-motivated dark matter models that sample the full range of viable candidate masses.

Bio: Gordan Krnjaic is a theoretical physicist whose research explores connections between particle physics and cosmology, with an emphasis on physics beyond the Standard Model. He received his PhD from Johns Hopkins University in 2012, was a postdoctoral fellow at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics from 2012-2015, and was the David N. Schramm Fellow at Fermilab from 2015-2018. He is currently a Scientist in the Theory Division at Fermilab and an Associate Professor of Astronomy & Astrophysics at the University of Chicago