Sixth Symposium on Large TPCs for Low Energy Rare Event Detection

For the sixth time the International Symposium on large TPCs for Low-Energy Rare-Event Detection has been organized in Paris on 17–19 December 2012. As for the previous conference, we were welcomed in the Astroparticle and Cosmology Laboratory (APC).

Around one hundred physicists from all over the world gathered to discuss progress in the dark matter and low-energy neutrino search. The new results from the LHC were also widely discussed. The Higgs discovery at 125 GeV, without any sign of other new heavy particles, does not provide us with any information on the nature of dark mater.

Alternatives to the favored SUSY model, in which the role of the WIMP is played by a stable neutralino, predict low mass candidates below a few GeV. Developing low threshold detectors at sub-keV energies becomes mandatory, and interest for Axion or Axion-like particles as dark matter is revived.

We have seen increasing activity in the field and new infrastructures for these searches have been developed. We heard news of activities in the Canfranc laboratory in Spain, Jinping in China, SURF in the USA and about the extension project of Fréjus (LSM) laboratory. We would like to thank the organizing and advisory committees as well as the session chairpersons: J Zinn-Justin, G Wormser, D Nygren, G Chardin, F Vannucci, D Attié, T Patzak and S Jullian.

I Giomataris, P Colas and I G Irastorza