A test run of the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) detector in South Dakota (USA) has shown it to be the most sensitive dark matter detector yet created.
- LZ is hunting for a specific type of dark matter candidate called weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), which are hypothesized to have been created in the early universe and would still be hanging around today.
- If they are, they would interact with regular matter through gravity and the weak nuclear force, producing the astronomical anomalies associated with dark matter.
About LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ)
- LZ consists of a huge titanium tank filled with 10 tonnes of extremely pure liquid xenon.
- When a particle from outside the tank hits a xenon atom, it creates a burst of light that is measured by a series of detectors surrounding the tank.
- The properties of that light can then be analysed to determine what type of particle caused it.
- To shield the xenon from particles and radiation that we know don’t come from dark matter, the tank is surrounded by an even larger tank of purified water and the whole thing is buried more than a kilometre underground in an old gold mine.
Dark matter and Dark energy
- All interactions in the universe are a result of four fundamental forces acting on particles — strong nuclear force, weak nuclear force, electromagnetic force and gravitation.
- Dark matter is made up of particles that do not have a charge. It means they do not interact through electromagnetic interactions. So, these are particles that are “dark”, namely because they do not emit light, which is an electromagnetic phenomenon.
- These are “matter” because they possess mass like normal matter and hence interact through gravity.
- Gravitational force is extremely weak. For one thing, a particle that interacts so weakly becomes rather elusive to detect. This is because interactions from other known particles could drown out signals of dark matter particles.
- Roughly 68% of the universe is dark energy.
- Dark matter makes up about 27%. The rest – everything on Earth, everything ever observed with all of our instruments, all normal matter – adds up to less than 5% of the universe.
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