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In dark matter experiments it is impossible to shield the detector from neutrinos, because neutrinos can so easily penetrate ordinary matter. Therefore, in dark matter experiments it is necessary to have good estimates for the cross sections of both neutrinos and dark matter. Otherwise it is not possible to distinguish a possible dark matter signal from the neutrino background.

- The direct detection of dark matter (or lack thereof) would directly lead to a better understanding of the fundamental nature of the universe, explains Doctoral Researcher Joona Kasurinen from the Ģ��ֱ��.

Neutrinos and possibly dark matter particles can scatter off atomic nuclei, which can be used to detect them. In the calculation of such scatterings, one typically assumes that the incoming particle only couples with one proton or neutron at a time, meaning that only one-body currents are taken into account. However, it has been known for some time that the inclusion of two-body currents would lead to significant corrections, so in principle they should be taken into account. In recent years this has become possible as a new scattering formalism has been developed.

In his dissertation work Kasurinen determined the probabilities of certain scattering events. Two-body currents were taken into account in the calculations, which had never been done before for these particular scatterings/nuclei.

The public examination of MSc Joona Kasurinen's dissertation "Dark matter and neutrino scattering off nuclei with effective two-body currents" is held on Friday 16.5.2025 at 12.00 in the lecture hall FYS1 in Ylistönrinne. Associate Professor Javier Menéndez (Institut de Ciencies del Cosmos, University of Barcelona) serves as the opponent and Associate Professor Markus Kortelainen (Ģ��ֱ��) serves as the custos. The language of the examination is English.

The dissertation “Dark matter and neutrino scattering off nuclei with effective two-body currents” is available in the JYX publication archive: