Largest ever dark matter experiment

Mar 19, 2016

LUX – one of the largest underground xenon dark matter experiment, approximately hundred times more sensitive to dark matter than its predecessor, operates from the underground Sanford Research Facility located in the hills of South Dakota. Lux is also known as one of the most sensitive dark matter detector available today.

A team of scientists are doing dark matter experiments in the Homestake Mine, an played-out gold mine in South Dakota, that was converted into underground chambers for physics experiments that need to be shielded from cosmic radiation.

Tons of liquid xenon surrounds sensitive light detectors within Lux, and it is designed to detect dark matter particles collision with xenon atoms, which recoils and emits faint flash of light, that is detected by the light sensors. The detector’s location beneath a mile of rock helps to shield it from cosmic rays and other radiation that would interfere with a dark matter signal.

Planning for the next-generation dark matter experiment at Sanford Lab is already underway. It will be decommissioned later during the year to make way for the much bigger xenon detector known as LUX ZEPLIN, which will be filled with liquid xenon – thirty times the volume used for LUX. The LUX experiment is supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and DOE, including 19 research universities and national laboratories in the USA, the United Kingdom and Portugal.

Source:http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/07/two-big-dark-matter-experiments-gain-us-support