Weizmann researchers participate in the most sensitive search for dark matter to date

June 9, 2018

Dr Ran Budnik and his team in the Weizmann Institute of Science have joined 165 researchers from 27 research institutes around the world working on the XENON1T experiment.

This experiment is the most sensitive by far to search for dark matter, and the results recently reported set a stringent limit on the possible mass of particles that could make up the elusive dark matter. Following these results, based on a tank containing over a ton of liquid xenon and data collected from close to a year, the research team is planning an even larger, more sensitive experiment – XENONnT – for 2019.

Dark matter is thought to make up 83% of all matter, but it is invisible to us as it does not emit light and interacts only very weakly with ordinary matter. One of the candidates for dark matter is the Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs).

XENON1T has been at the forefront of the search for WIMPs. Deep underground, in the INFN Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso in Italy, the xenon detector waits for a signal that would report the interaction of a WIMP with a xenon atom. This would be a tiny flash of scintillation light and a handful of ionized electrons, which themselves emit tiny flashes of light.

Budnik and his team in the Institute’s Particle Physics and Astrophysics Department worked on the control systems for the XENON1T equipment, their calibration, and statistical interpretation and analysis.

Since the first experiment, in 2005, the XENON collaboration has increased the potential target mass from 5kg to 1300 kg, while decreasing the background interference by a factor of 5000. The newest iteration will increase the target four times over, while decreasing the background interference by yet again a factor of ten.

“Because the XENON1T setup is so precise, the fact that no background events were detected in the purest region of the detector means that we can now set a limit on the interactions of WIMPs with ordinary matter. The new detector will enable us to search for these particles in a range that cannot be yet observed,” said Dr Budnik.

Dr Ran Budnik is the incumbent of the Aryeh and Ido Dissentshik Career Development Chair.

 

 

More Posts

Weizmann named sixth in the world in Nature Index of Innovation and first outside the US

The Nature Index of Innovation 2017, which points industry to institutions providing ideas behind inventions, has placed the Weizmann Institute of Science in sixth place in an international ranking of…

eastRead More

Australian students attend Weizmann Summer School 2018

During July, two high school science graduates – Dominic Agius, now at Sydney University, and Milan Leonard, now at the Australian National University – attended the month long, annual Weizmann…

eastRead More

Weizmann International Summer Science Institute Australian graduates return – fully inspired!

For the month of July, three fortunate high school graduates attended the annual Weizmann Institute of Science International Summer Science Institute (ISSI) in Israel, one of which was thanks to…

eastRead More

Friends collaborate to de-code superbugs in Weizmann-Monash research partnership

Eight years ago he was a postdoctoral student of Nobel Laureate, Professor Ada Yonath of the Weizmann Institute of Science, spending three years in Israel studying.  Now Dr Matthew Belousoff…

eastRead More

View All