CRA Seminar: Mariia Fedkevych

Title: Studying neutrino mass and dark matter, the key factors of the Universe structure formation

Abstract: The formation of the structure of the Universe observed today is largely determined by the mass of its components. We know that ordinary visible matter makes up only about 20% of the total mass of the Universe. The rest is known as dark matter, and its nature is as yet a mystery. Various particles claim the role of dark matter. One of them is neutrino, a Standard Model particle abundantly present in the Universe. Oscillation experiments demonstrated that neutrinos have tiny mass, which, however, is still not exactly known. In this presentation I will discuss the experimental challenge of determining the exact neutrino mass, which would be an important milestone in particle physics and would greatly clarify the cosmological role of neutrinos. I will pay special attention to the direct measurement of neutrinos using different approaches: the KATRIN and the HOLMES experiments. However, only a small fraction of the total amount of dark matter can exist as light neutrinos in order to allow small-scale structures (stars, galaxies and galaxy clusters) to exist as we see them, so the search for another responsible particle continues. So-called weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP), a hypothetical particle predicted by various extensions of the Standard Model of particle physics, is considered to be a plausible candidate for dark matter. In my talk I will show the current experimental effort to directly detect WIMPs in the LZ experiment.