HET BROWN BAG SEMINAR | New Directions in Dark Matter Direct Detection

Most models of WIMPs that possess sizable tree-level interactions with the electroweak bosons of the Standard Model are under ever increasing pressure from the relentless Moore's law like progression of today's direct detection experiments. This has led many to consider various scenarios in which the WIMP-nucleon scattering is suppressed at leading order. While much progress has been done in this regard, there remain many interesting avenues to explore. In this talk, I will summarize ongoing work in this direction within the context of the MSSM and other frameworks and discuss the viability to observe/rule-out a few of these types of models.