Tag Archives: cherenkov radiation

Searching for Cosmic Accelerators via IceCube

Berkeley Lab Researchers Part of an International Hunt

In our universe there are particle accelerators 40 million times more powerful than the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. Scientists don’t know what these cosmic accelerators are or where they are located, but new results being reported from “IceCube,” the neutrino observatory buried at the South Pole, may show the way. These new results should also erase any doubts as to IceCube’s ability to deliver on its promise.

“The IceCube Collaboration has announced the observation of 28 extremely high energy events that constitute the first solid evidence for astrophysical neutrinos from outside our solar system,” says Spencer Klein, a senior scientist with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and a long-time member of the IceCube Collaboration. “These 28 events include two of the highest energy neutrinos ever reported, which have been named Bert and Ernie.” (more…)

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The Search for Dark Matter Goes Deeper Underground

With LUX ZEPLIN Berkeley Lab researchers seek to increase the sensitivity of LUX, the most sensitive search for dark matter yet, by orders of magnitude

Although it’s invisible, dark matter accounts for at least 80 percent of the matter in the universe. No one knows what it is, but most scientists would bet on weakly interacting massive particles, or WIMPs.

LUX, the Large Underground Xenon detector at the Sanford Underground Research Facility in the Black Hills of South Dakota, is calling that bet with a titanium bottle holding 350 kilograms of liquid xenon, placed in a cavern 4,850 feet down in the former Homestake gold mine. LUX is a trap set for dark-matter WIMPs. (more…)

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