My group focuses on searching for signs of theories that could explain dark matter and other mysterious in our understanding of the universe. We do this in two ways: exploiting the huge general purpose CMS detector at the LHC in non-standard ways and building small scale dedicated detectors at a range of facilities.
Searches with CMS
The FORMOSA detector is proposed to be in the forward region of the LHC (close to the beamline) as the targeted signal has a greatly enhanced flux in this region. FORMOSA would be ideally located in the Forward Physics Facility at CERN. This facility is proposed to be constructed ~600m in front of the ATLAS IP during HL-LHC running at CERN. The FPF is comprised of four experiments that together will explore a wide range of BSM and SM phenomena.
The FORMOSA detector builds on the expertise and understanding gained by the milliQan experiment, which is located in the central region of the LHC near the CMS detector.
Searching for millicharged particles
The feasibility of the detector design is being proven by the FORMOSA demonstrator in the UJ12 cavern at CERN. The demonstrator was constructed at UC Davis and installed in Febuary 2024. It is collecting data from Run 3 of the CERN LHC.