French and Australian scientists launch dark matter project
Scientists from France and Australia will collaborate on a new multinational project using xenon to search for dark matter particles.
The collaboration will be launched during a visit from France’s scientific governing body, Le Centre National de la Research Scientifique (CNRS) to the head quarter of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Dark Matter Particle Physics tomorrow (Wednesday, 13 April).
The visit will include a tour of the dark matter laboratory at the University of Melbourne and presentations from collaborating researchers.
The joint project will investigate the nature of neutrinos and the nature of elusive dark matter using the future gas xenon experiment, DARWIN, that will be located at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso, Italy.
DARWIN is a next generation observatory for dark matter being developed with cooperation between scientists from across the globe and will use up to 40 tonnes of xenon; to put this scale in perspective, only 60 tonnes of xenon are currently available worldwide.
The project will also develop technologies including a prototype xenon time projection chamber to improve the experiment’s capability to see events with very low energy. The prototype will be located in the Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory.
ARC Centre of Excellence for Dark Matter Particle Physics Director Elisabetta Barberio says the joint project was one example of the international collaboration happening at the Centre.
“We’re pleased to be collaborating with the CNRS in this exciting research. This project provies Australian researchers with the opportunity to be involved in research on an international stage and contribute to an experiment that could help us better understand our universe.”
“We are looking forward to extending our relationship with the CNRS through this collaboration and their visit to Melbourne,” Professor Barberio says.
Centre researcher Jeremy Bourhill will also be working with French scientists, using 3D printing to produce previously off-limit devices for quantum information processing, generating unique states of light, and dark matter detection.
“This research aims to provide technologies that will fundamentally alter the scope of problems we can solve computationally, the types of properties and scale of objects we can sense, and answer questions about the fundamental nature of the universe,” he says.
The French delegation from the CNRS visited a range of projects across Victoria to strengthen ties between scientific communities in both countries.
BACKGROUND NOTES
The ARC Centre of Excellence for Dark Matter Particle Physics was established in 2020 to bring together physicists from across Australia, in partnership with key international researchers and institutions, to pursue the discovery of Dark Matter.
Dark matter it is a mysterious substance that holds galaxies together and constitutes 80 per cent of the matter of the Universe. Its existence is inferred from its gravitational interaction and the exploration of the nature of dark matter is considered science’s next frontier.
The Centre’s researchers aim to make discoveries that could change our understanding of the universe.
Some of its research will be carried out in a laboratory located 1km underground in the Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory in Stawell Gold Mine. It will be the first laboratory of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere.
The underground location of the mine aims to reduce interference from cosmic rays, the high-energy particles that constantly rain down on Earth. Construction of the laboratory has begun and researchers will begin gathering data in 2022.