The LUX - ZEPLIN ( LZ ) experimentation squad has announce the outcome from its first scientific run today ; the experiment is the world ’s most sensitive dark subject detector , and though it did not find any dreary matter in this first round , the squad confirm that the experiment is run as expected .
The LZ experiment detector is made up nested armored combat vehicle of limpid atomic number 54 , each 1.5 meters tall and 1.5 meters encompassing , entomb under South Dakota . The idea is that a colored matter particle whizzing through space will finally spring off one of the atomic number 54 atoms , knocking sluttish electrons in a flash that is recorded by the experiment . The tank is buried about a mile below Earth ’s surface to minimize the amount of background noise . Today ’s declaration hail after 60 unrecorded years of data collection that spanned December 25 to May 12 .
“ We ’re front for very , very depressed - push recoils by the standards of particle physic . It ’s a very , very rare process , if it ’s visible at all , ” say Hugh Lippincott , a physicist at UC Santa Barbara and a member of the LZ team , in a press conference today . “ you’re able to shoot a sinister matter subatomic particle through 10 million light - years of principal and require only one fundamental interaction at the closing of that light - class . ”
The LZ central detector in the clean room at Sanford Underground Research Facility.Photo: Matthew Kapust, Sanford Underground Research Facility
dreary subject is the catch - all term for the unsung hooey that appears to make up about 27 % of the cosmos . It just ever interact with ordinary matter , hence its “ swarthiness ” to us . But we bonk it ’s out there because , while never directly detected , it has gravitational effect that can be understand on cosmic scales . ( NASA breaks down the concept passably wellhere . )
There are many candidates for dark thing . One is the WIMP , or a Weakly Interacting Massive Particle . Unlike otherdark matter hypotheses like axions or dark photon , which are so small and spread that they may behave more like undulation , wimp would have passel but scarce ever interact with ordinary matter . So to detect them , you necessitate a twist that middling much mutes all other physics exit on .
LZ is super raw , which make it good for spotting such fleeting and infrequent interaction . The experimentation is 30 times magnanimous and 100 times more sensible than its predecessor , the Large Underground Xenon experimentation , fit in to a Sanford Underground Research Facilityrelease . LZ is “ efficaciously an onion ” Lippincott said , with each level of the experiment insulating against noise that could obscure a possible weakly interacting massive particle interaction .
The LZ Outer Detector, which guards against unwanted signals.Photo: Matthew Kapust, Sanford Underground Research Facility
“ The coaction worked well together to calibrate and to understand the detector response , ” said Aaron Manalaysay , a physicist at Berkeley Laboratory and a appendage of the LZ team , in a Berkeley Labpress release . “ Considering we just ferment it on a few month ago and during COVID restrictions , it is telling we have such important resolution already . ”
Of the many catching the LZ experiment made in its 60 - Clarence Day run , 335 seemed bright , but none turned out to be WIMP . That does n’t mean WIMPs are n’t out there , but it does carry off a mass range from competition . ( This is the crux of what dark issue demodulator do : turn by snatch , they rule out what masses the particles ca n’t be.)Multiple physicist recently told Gizmodothat they call back the next openhanded find in particle purgative will come from a sinister affair sensor like LZ .
This scientific run kicked off what ’s expected to be a 1,000 - twenty-four hours schedule . The recent round was also unblinded , so the LZ team could monitor how the technology behaved . Since it performed as ask , the next scientific political campaign will have its results ‘ salted , ’ or peppered with phony signals , tomitigate bias .
Twenty times more information will be collected in the coming years , so perhaps the wimpish WIMPs will finally have to face the music of their own creation . Then again , maybe they do n’t survive at all . We wo n’t have it away until we look .
More : 10 Years After the Higgs Boson , What ’s the Next Big Thing for Physics ?
Dark matterParticle physicsPhysical sciencesPhysicstheoretical physics
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