Particle detector for hunting dark matter installed a mile underground

The central component of LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) - the largest direct-detection dark matter experiment in the US - has been slowly lowered 4,850 feet down a shaft formerly used in gold-mining operations by a team involving UCL physicists. Although dark matter accounts for about 27 percent of the universe, we do not know what it is made of and experiments have yet to make direct contact with a particle - it has only been detected through its gravitational effects on normal matter. Once operational next year, the LZ aims to change this by hunting theorised dark matter particles called WIMPs, or weakly interacting massive particles. It is 100 times more sensitive than its predecessor experiment, called LUX, which operated in the same underground space. Professor Cham Ghag (UCL Physics & Astronomy), UCL LZ collaboration scientist, said: "Understanding the nature of the elusive dark matter is recognized as one of the highest priorities in science and we are building the most sensitive machine yet to detect WIMPS, which are the leading theoretical candidate for a dark matter particle. "If WIMPS exist, billions of particles pass through your hand every second but to directly hunt this mysterious particle, we have to bury our detector deep underground to shield it from all the other particles which steadily bombard Earth's surface." Last week, crews at the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) in South Dakota strapped the 5,000-pound, 9-foot-tall particle detector to its resting place following extensive planning and two test moves of a "dummy" detector to ensure its safe delivery.