Abstract

Particle dark matter is thought to be the overwhelming majority of all the matter in the Universe. Its gravitational force impacts on the ordinary matter that we, the earth and the stars, are composed of. Its presence has been confirmed by many astronomical observations. However, we still have no convincing direct evidence for the existence of particle dark matter. We hope that this may soon change…

This talk will discuss dark matter searches with a focus on the LUX -ZEPLIN which is a second generation dark matter experiment to be installed one mile underground in the former Homestake gold mine in South Dakota. For particle detection it uses liquid xenon and with a mass of about 10 tonnes it will be the most sensitive detector in the word for the direct detection of Weakly Interactive Massive Particles. I will discuss the LZ design and its construction, with emphasis on the UK contribution.

Dr. Pawel A. Majewski is in the STFC /Rutherford Appleton Laboratory at the Department of Particle Physics and leads a Dark Matter group. For the last 15 years his research has been focused on Dark Matter searches with the projects like ZEPLIN -II and –III at Boulby mine in the North Yorkshire (UK) , DEAP -3600 at SNOLAB (Canada) and LUX -ZEPLIN a second generation dark matter experiment in South Dakota (US). His main responsibility in the LZ is the design and fabrication of an ultra radio-pure titanium cryostat.