New Challenges for CMB Experiments: A Case Study in the Dark Sector

Speaker: Cynthia Trendafilova (University of Illinois) In Person and zoom 

Zoom info: https://stanford.zoom.us/my/sihanyuan?pwd=QnpsUHZWWGJ2ekVYWmZVL3BmM0gzZz09

Current and next-generation Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) surveys will measure the anisotropies of the CMB with unprecedented precision. Complementary to other laboratory and astrophysical searches, these measurements provide a probe to search for physics beyond the Standard Model. In this talk, I will discuss some applications of this data to search for signatures of dark sector interactions, such as dark matter-baryon scattering, and dark matter interacting with dark radiation. I will present results leveraging the SPT-3G 2018 temperature and polarization data set to constrain these interactions and discuss the challenges faced by this and future analyses.