24 July 2026

Finn Volker Gallinat has successfully completed his Bachelor's thesis and his Physics degree in our group.

For his thesis project, Finn developed the theoretical framework for interpreting direct dark matter detection experiments and applied it to the proposed DarkSPHERE experiment, which employs a spherical proportional counter for light dark matter searches. Working within the framework of non-relativistic effective field theory (NREFT), he combined the relevant astrophysical, nuclear, and detector effects into a full calculation chain. After validating the calculations against the published spin-independent and spin-dependent sensitivity projections of DarkSPHERE, Finn extended the analysis to the complete set of spin-1/2 effective operators linear in dark matter velocity. His results, obtained here for the first time, demonstrate how the hydrogen, helium, and carbon content of the target provides complementary information and highlight the advantage offered by DarkSPHERE in the sub-GeV mass range.

We congratulate Finn on this excellent work and wish him all the best in his future research activities.