Searching for Dark Matter in Particle Physics Experiments
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Date
2008-05-25
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Abstract
Astronomical observations have shown that the amount of visible matter
in the universe comprises only a fraction of the total mass of the
universe. This extra mass is described as ``dark
matter''. In this thesis we search for evidence of a
new type of particle that would be the dark matter in the universe and
decay from heavy, long-lived supersymmetric
particles produced in high energy proton anti-proton collisions. Since our particles have a long lifetime and decay into a photon and a
gravitino, our dark matter candidate and the supersymmetric partner of the
graviton, we search for evidence of photons that arrive delayed in
time. This thesis explores a new search technique and uses data from run~II of the Fermilab Tevatron. We observe 24
events which is roughly consistent with our background expectation of
18.1 plus/minus 4.2 events.
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Keywords
delayed photons, neutralino, gravitino, particle collisions, Supersymmetry, dark matter