Searching for a dark photon signal with PADME

The lack of direct experimental observation of dark matter candidates at the electroweak scale so far could be justified with the introduction of a dark sector that can only feebly interact with the known world. The corresponding gauge boson of the dark sector is the dark photon. Several experiments around the world are searching for a dark photon in visible or invisible decays. PADME is the first experiment using the annihilation of a positron beam against a thin target as a production channel for the dark photon, and the missing mass technique to discover the dark photon as a peak above a smooth background. For my PhD I had the opportunity to participate in the PADME experiment from the very beginning, designing and building the full carbon active diamond target and contributing to the development of the Detector Control System, on-line monitor, software reconstruction and physics analysis. For the seminar I will talk about the physical motivation of PADME and present the work I did during my PhD.

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