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SUMMARY:The hunt for Dark Matter: First results from the LUX Experiment - 
 Chamkaur Ghag (UCL)
DTSTART:20140204T150000Z
DTEND:20140204T160000Z
UID:TALK50473@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Susan Haines
DESCRIPTION:Discovery of the nature of dark matter is internationally reco
 gnised as one of the greatest contemporary challenges in science\, fundame
 ntal to our understanding of the Universe. The most compelling candidates 
 for dark matter are Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) that aris
 e naturally in several models of physics beyond the Standard Model. The di
 scovery of galactic WIMPs would therefore enlighten two of the outstanding
  problems of modern physics - the matter composition of the Universe and t
 he extrapolation of the Standard Model of particle physics to GUT scales. 
 Although no definitive signal has yet been discovered\, the worldwide race
  towards direct detection has been dramatically accelerated by the remarka
 ble progress and evolution of liquid xenon (LXe) time projection chambers 
 (TPCs). They have shifted the scale of target mass by orders of magnitude 
 whilst simultaneously reducing backgrounds to unprecedented low levels\, b
 ecoming the leaders of the field and offering the most promising prospects
  for a first definitive detection.\n\nI will present on the current status
  in the worldwide hunt for WIMPs\, where the LXe TPC based LUX experiment\
 , operated in the Davis Cavern of the SURF laboratory\, USA\, has recently
  announced results from it's first science run. From an exposure of 85 day
 s\, having found no evidence of signal above expected background\, LUX has
  set constraints on scalar WIMP-nucleon interactions above 7.6x10-46 cm2 a
 t 33 GeV/c2 WIMP mass (90% C.L.) - three times more sensitive than any com
 peting experiment. This first result also seriously challenges the interpr
 etation of hints of signal detected in other experiments as arising from l
 ow-mass WIMPs. Finally\, I will report on the planned multi-tonne successo
 r to LUX: the LZ experiment. This instrument will have sensitivity ideally
  matched to explore the bulk of the remaining theoretically favoured elect
 roweak phase space towards galactic Dark Matter discovery.\n
LOCATION:Rutherford Seminar Room B
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