Research theme
Direct detection with the DarkSide argon programme and dark-matter searches at the LHC, joined up through phenomenology that maps models onto what different detectors actually see.
Dark matter makes up most of the matter in the Universe, yet it has never been seen directly. I attack the problem from two directions at once — trying to produce it in high-energy collisions at the LHC, and waiting for it to strike a detector deep underground — and tie the two together with phenomenology that maps models onto what each kind of experiment actually sees.
At the LHC, I pioneered detector-corrected ("unfolded") measurements of missing-momentum-plus-jets final states that can be reinterpreted against many dark-matter models long after publication, and worked on searches for dark matter produced alongside b-quarks.
In direct detection, I established Manchester's role in the DarkSide argon programme. DarkSide-50 has delivered world-leading limits on low-mass WIMPs, and probed the Migdal effect and electron-recoil channels to reach lighter dark matter than nuclear recoils allow.
In phenomenology, my group studies target complementarity and isospin-violating dark matter — how combining argon, xenon and other detector materials breaks degeneracies and sharpens the interpretation of results across the field.
DarkSide-20k is under construction at the Gran Sasso laboratory, with Manchester leading on its silicon photosensors. Alongside it we are running design and sensitivity studies for a dedicated low-mass argon experiment, and developing new methods to reinterpret collider data against the full space of dark-matter models.
Interactive · Pedagogical tool
Build your own dark-matter experiment in the browser. Slide the energy thresholds, exposure, intrinsic background and detector depth, and watch your sensitivity curve move against the world-leading limits from DarkSide-50, LZ and DarkSide-20k. The plot pins to the top of the screen while you adjust controls, so every tweak is visible live. Mobile-friendly, with swipeable low-mass and high-mass panes.
Open the explorer →Interactive · Pedagogical tool
A companion tool that looks at the other end of the problem: what actually arrives. Set the dark-matter particle's mass, cross-section and the local halo, pick a target nucleus, and watch the flux through your hand, the spread of halo speeds, and the nuclear-recoil spectrum a detector records. A "run the experiment" toy turns the expected counts into real Poisson fluctuations — a reminder that one event is never a discovery. Beginner and advanced modes; mobile-friendly.
Open the explorer →
The companion electron-channel analysis on DarkSide-50's 12 ton-day argon exposure. Ionisation signals from sub-GeV/c² dark matter scattering on atomic electrons constrain four distinct scenarios in one paper: DM-electron elastic scattering, axion-like-particle absorption, dark-photon kinetic mixing — and, for the first time in direct detection, the mixing angle |U_e4|² for keV-scale sterile neutrinos.
The legacy DarkSide-50 low-mass WIMP search, on the full 12 ton-day low-radioactivity argon dataset. Improved calibration of the LAr ionisation response, a refined background model and a 0.06 keV_er analysis threshold push the SI cross-section limit at 3 GeV/c² to 6×10⁻⁴³ cm² — a factor-of-10 improvement on the previous DarkSide-50 result — and extend the exclusion region below the previous world best across the [1.2, 3.6] GeV/c² WIMP mass range.
The Migdal effect — ionization shaken loose when a nucleus recoils — gives a sub-GeV WIMP a detectable electronic signature even when the bare nuclear recoil is well below threshold. This analysis, on DarkSide-50's full 12 306 kg·d low-radioactivity argon exposure using the ionization signal alone, extends the search down to 40 MeV/c² and sets the world-leading spin-independent limit on WIMP-nucleon scattering for masses below 3.6 GeV/c² at the time of publication. Establishes Migdal as a routine sub-GeV channel for argon.
Concept design study for DarkSide-LowMass: a ionization-only, electron-counting argon TPC built on the DarkSide-50 legacy and the DarkSide-20k programme, optimised for sub-10 GeV/c² dark matter. The projections show GeV-scale reach down to the solar neutrino fog and — through the Migdal effect or DM-electron scattering — significant sensitivity down to 10 MeV/c². Sets out the threshold, background and spurious-electron control targets a purpose-built low-mass argon experiment would need to hit.
Dark matter need not couple equally to protons and neutrons; relaxing that symmetry can move direct-detection limits by orders of magnitude. Earlier studies of isospin-violating dark matter worked in the zero-momentum limit; we extend the treatment to the full non-relativistic effective-field-theory (NREFT) basis and apply it to XENON1T, DarkSide-50, DEAP-3600, LZ and DarkSide-20k. The headline surprise: under the Standard-Model-gauge-invariant formulation of the canonical spin-dependent interaction, argon — a zero-spin nucleus — becomes competitive with xenon, illustrating how strongly target complementarity matters for interpretation.
A full Run 2 ATLAS search (139 fb⁻¹) in the b-jets + missing transverse momentum final state, simultaneously interpreted in three well-motivated BSM scenarios: pair-produced bottom squarks decaying to b + neutralino; pair-produced dark-matter particles via a generic scalar or pseudoscalar mediator radiated off b-quarks; and pair-produced third-generation down-type scalar leptoquarks. No excess seen — the headline limit excludes bottom squarks below 1270 GeV at 95% CL for a massless neutralino, with the dark-matter and leptoquark reinterpretations setting the strongest LHC bounds in this channel at publication.
Current
Principal Investigator
Diverse interests across particle physics, software development and data analysis at colliders and in direct dark matter detection, high-frequency gravitational waves, neutrino physics, phenomenology, instrumentation, and the deployment of AI techniques.
Particle Astrophysics Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Instrumentation development for direct dark matter searches.
Engineer
SiPM sensor assembly, metrology, and testing for the neutron veto system of the DarkSide experiment.
Engineer
Development of handling and shipping systems and processes for DarkSide-20k sensors.
PhD student (2025–)
Advancing spin-dependent dark matter searches with DarkSide-20k through detector instrumentation, sensitivity studies and sidereal analyses.
PhD student (2025–)
Advancing the discovery potential of liquid argon dark matter detectors through detector commissioning, calibration and novel sensitivity studies.
PhD student (2023–)
Advancing direct detection frontiers for dark matter, new neutrino physics and high-frequency gravitational waves through detector modelling, optimisation and novel sensor technologies.
PhD student (2021–)
Silicon photosensor instrumentation for next-generation dark matter searches.
MPhil student
Sensitivity studies for beyond-the-Standard-Model low-energy solar CEνNS anomalies with low-threshold dual-phase liquid-argon TPCs.
MPhys student (2025–26)
A muon cosmic-ray detector and mini DarkSide-20k demonstrator for public engagement, using silicon photosensor modules built for the DarkSide-20k neutron veto. With Louis Durand.
MPhys student (2025–26)
A muon cosmic-ray detector and mini DarkSide-20k demonstrator for public engagement, using silicon photosensor modules built for the DarkSide-20k neutron veto. With David Crofts.
Alumni
MScR student · 2021–2022
Prospects for DarkSide-20k to probe non-standard neutrino interactions from solar neutrino sources.
MScR student · 2019–2020
Diagnostic study of the DarkSide-50 direct dark matter detection experiment.
Now PhD student
MScR student · 2018–2020
Coherent scattering of supernova neutrinos in next-generation liquid noble gas dark matter detectors.
Now PhD student
MPhys students · 2022–23
Experimental signatures to search for low mass dark matter gravitationally captured in celestial bodies.
MPhys students · 2021–22
Feasibility of new searches for dark photons at the LHC ATLAS experiment.
MPhys students · 2020–21
Dark matter production in high-energy photon–photon interactions at the LHC ATLAS and AFP experiments.
MPhys students · 2019–20
New approaches to searching for dark matter and QCD axion production at the LHC.
MPhys students · 2019–20
Generative adversarial network approaches to enhance simulation of liquid-argon time projection chambers and dark matter detection sensitivity.
MPhys students · 2019–20
Fisher information to enhance the sensitivity of future dark matter searches.
MPhys student · 2018–19
Simulation and sensitivity studies for supernovae detection with the DarkSide-20k dark matter detector.
MPhys student · 2018–19
Performance of the DarkSide-50 detector for direct dark matter searches.
MPhys students · 2017–18
New searches for invisible phenomena at the LHC.
Summer research intern · 2022
Interplay of non-standard neutrino interactions and dark matter discovery in liquid-argon direct detection experiments.
Summer research intern · 2021
Potential for DarkSide-20k to probe non-standard neutrino interactions.
Summer research intern · 2019
Effective field theory simulations of nuclear energy recoils for non-standard dark matter searches at DarkSide-20k.
Summer research interns · 2018
Simulations for the DarkSide-20k dark matter detection neutron veto system.