Scientific Calendar Event



Starts 26 Mar 2013 16:30
Ends 26 Mar 2013 20:00
Central European Time
ICTP
Leonardo da Vinci Building Luigi Stasi Seminar Room
Strada Costiera, 11 I - 34151 Trieste (Italy)
Abstract: Several unexplained results from neutrino oscillation experiments and from cosmology have sparked renewed interest in extensions of the Standard Model containing light sterile neutrinos. In this talk, we first discuss the status of such models, we present results from a global fit to neutrino oscillation data, and we discuss the tension between different data sets. In the second part of the talk, we explore the possible implications that the existence of sterile neutrinos could have for dark matter searches. In particular, resonantly enhanced active-to-sterile oscillations can weaken limits on dark matter annihilation in the Sun. On the direct detection side, we show that models in which sterile neutrinos form part of a larger hidden sector can lead to interesting new signatures of solar sterile neutrinos scattering on electrons or nuclei. On the one hand, these signatures provide a new application for dark matter detectors, on the other hand they are not always easy to distinguish from dark matter scattering signals.