Physics & Astronomy Colloquium – Spring 2020 – Wang

Speaker: Ryan Wang (Brandeis University)

Title: Hunting for the Invisible Deep Underground

Abstract: In the past decades physicists have been working deep underground trying
to solve the mystery of the universe. The“invisible matter” which can penetrate
through almost everything constitutes 27 % of the energy content of the Universe.
This strange and unknown matter called “dark matter” (DM), has been
confirmed by astrophysical and cosmological evidence. Many hypotheses have
been proposed to explain the nature of dark matter, among those, Weakly Interacting
Massive Particles (WIMPs) are the most promising candidate. Physicists
have been utilizing different techniques to detect the dark matter. Among those
techniques liquid noble gases has been extensively used not only for direct dark
matter searches but also in neutrino physics. In this talk I will give an introduction
to the evidence of dark matter and different techniques being used, also
summarizing the techniques of liquid noble gas dark matter detector, and my
involvements in the first/second generation of the dark matter detector. The
latest progress on the construction of LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) detector at Sanford
Underground Research Facility (SURF) will be presented. The commissioning
of LZ detector is expected later this year, the projected sensitivity will be
presented in this talk as well.