UCLA High Energy & Astro-Particle (HEAP) Seminar “Illuminating the dark side: direct searches for cold dark matter with XENON and DARWIN” Presented by Laura Baudis, University of Zurich Cosmological observations and the dynamics of the Milky Way provide strong evidence for an invisible and dominant mass component, that so far reveals its presence only by its gravitational interaction. If the dark matter is made of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs), it can be directly detected via elastic scattering from nuclei in ultra-low background, deep-underground detectors. Among these, detectors based on liquefied noble gases feature an excellent sensitivity over a wide range of WIMP masses, and a large discovery potential. After a short introduction to the direct dark matter detection method and to the current status of the field, I will briefly discuss the XENON100 detector, its most recent results, and present the status and prospects for XENON1T, which is acquiring science data at the Gran Sasso Underground Laboratory in Italy. I will end by introducing DARWIN, an R&D and design study for a next-generation, multi-ton dark matter detector. Location: Knudsen 4-134 Date: Wednesday Feb. 15th, 2017 Time: 12:00pm Pizza at 11:45am