<B>Faculty Candidate Seminar</B><br><i>Nobel Liquids – The Revolution in Direct Dark Matter Searches – Recent Results From Borexino</i>

Speaker: Dr. Cristiano Galbiati (Princeton University)

Noble liquid detectors are changing in a fundamental way the field of direct dark matter searches. They feature excellent discrimination between minimum ionizing events - due to background radioactivity - and nuclear recoils - the signature of WIMP dark matter interactions -. Their unmatched promise of a rapid scaling of the target mass (by 2-3 orders of magnitude!) and of a corresponding increase in sensitivity is driving a large number of researchers into the field:
it's the 21st century gold rush of astroparticle physics. Will they provide the first successful exploration of the dark sector? Finally, I will present very recent results from the Borexino solar neutrino experiment. I will also discuss how the technology developed in the context of solar neutrino experiments will impact future direct dark matter searches.