Brown University researchers have assembled two massive arrays of photomultiplier tubes, powerful light sensors that will serve as the “eyes” for the LUX-ZEPLIN dark matter detector, which will start its search for dark matter particles in 2020. (more…)
Berkeley Lab is leading the construction of a mile-deep experiment that seeks to solve a science mystery
The race is on to build the most sensitive U.S.-based experiment designed to directly detect dark matter particles. Department of Energy officials have formally approved a key construction milestone that will propel the project toward its April 2020 goal for completion. (more…)
There is five times more dark matter in the universe than “normal” matter—the atoms and molecules that make up the familiar world. Yet, it is still unknown what this dominant dark component actually is. On Nov. 11 an international collaboration of scientists inaugurated the new XENON1T instrument designed to search for dark matter with unprecedented sensitivity at the Gran Sasso Underground Laboratory in Italy. (more…)
Scientists heard their first pops last week in an experiment that searches for signs of dark matter in the form of tiny bubbles.
They will need to analyze them further in order to discern whether dark matter caused any of the COUPP-60 experiment’s first bubbles at the SNOLAB underground science laboratory in Ontario, Canada. Dark matter accounts for nearly 90 percent of all matter in the universe, yet it is invisible to telescopes.
“Our goal is to make the most sensitive detector to see signals of particles that we don’t understand,” said Hugh Lippincott, a postdoctoral scientist with Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. Lippincott has spent much of the past several months leading the installation of the one-of-a-kind detector at SNOLAB, 1.5 miles underground. (more…)
