New results on the sub-GeV Dark Matter Frontier

The sub-GeV dark matter mass range has received increased interest in the last several years, owing to the lack of any unambiguous signal of the canonical WIMP in the GeV-TeV mass range. The sub-GeV mass range is relatively unexplored due to the difficulty of detecting such light dark matter with traditional techniques. However, there have been recent experimental developments that finally make sub-GeV direct detection viable.

I will discuss some of the theoretical principles and strategies to explore sub-GeV dark matter candidates, as well as some current and proposed experimental techniques. I will focus predominantly on semiconductor targets, such as the new SENSEI experiment which utilizes silicon CCDs, and demonstrate the potential for exploring the eV-GeV dark matter mass range in the near future.