Speaker
Description
In the past decades, numerous experiments have emerged to unveil the nature of dark matter (DM), one of the most discussed open questions in modern particle physics. Among them, the CRESST-III experiment, located at LNGS, operates scintillating crystals as cryogenic phonon detectors and reaches by that one of the strongest exclusion limits on the DM-nucleon interaction cross section, in the sub-GeV DM mass region. In recent measurements, a significant low energy excess (LEE) of unknown origin appeared: a sharp rise of the event rate below 200 eV. Currently, CRESST operates detectors with targets made from multiple materials such as calcium tungstate, sapphire, silicon and lithium. This provides unique opportunities for background discrimination and studies of the LEE. In our talk, we present the technology of the experiment, its capability to test light dark matter, facts about the LEE and plans for future measurements and developments.
