#Student Seminar: Is dark matter hiding in plain sight?

por Aurelio Amerio (IFIC)

jueves 23 abr. 2026 15:00 → 17:00 Europe/Madrid

1001-Primera-1-1-1 - Paterna. Seminario (Universe)

Roughly 85% of all matter in the universe doesn't seem to interact with electromagnetic radiation, making it dark and seemingly invisible; thus, we call it dark matter. Yet, we have a wealth of gravitational and cosmological phenomena pointing to its existence—phenomena that are not entirely and satisfactorily explained by alternative theories.

If dark matter annihilates or decays into Standard Model particles, it could produce a detectable gamma-ray signal, and gamma rays will be the protagonists of this talk.

In this seminar, I will talk about how we have managed to NOT find dark matter signals across a broad series of searches. We will explore some of the most compelling targets in the gamma-ray band, including the Galactic Center, dark matter subhalos, and the unresolved gamma-ray background.

The low-hanging fruit has already been picked, and we didn't manage to find dark matter where we looked for it first. Today, I will show you how advanced machine learning and statistical techniques can extract additional information where seemingly there is only noise. Maybe dark matter is hiding in plain sight, but what more do we need to do to actually see it?