Description:

The LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) experiment’s 7-ton xenon time projection chamber is the largest and most sensitive detector yet in our field’s 30+ year history of dark matter direct detection experiments.  These experiments search for rare interactions between particles from our galaxy’s dark matter halo and normal “light” matter in detectors here on earth, hoping in this way to shed light on exactly what the dark matter, which comprises >80% of the matter in the universe, is made of.  Now a third of the way into its planned 1,000-live-day exposure, LZ recently set a new record in the search for dark matter, excluding WIMP-nucleon cross sections down to 2.2e-48 cm^2.  I will share what it took to reach this sensitivity, and more importantly, what it will take to claim a dark matter discovery if a signal arises.  I’ll highlight the stories of how one Northwestern student became LZ’s radon prognosticator and how another tackled the question of what to do when your backgrounds are themselves among the rarest processes ever observed.  I will also discuss where dark matter detection is going next, including a preview of the Scintillating Bubble Chamber collaboration’s SBC-LAr10 detector at Fermilab.

Eric Dahl, Associate Professor, Northwestern University

Host: Mayda Velasco