ORGAN experiment in Victoria 'switched on'

The first dark matter experiment in Victoria has started taking data in an attempt to detect dark matter or narrow the search for the mysterious particle.

The ORGAN experiment, based in Swinburne, is the low frequency offshoot of the detector based at the University of Western Australia.

Project lead Ben McAllister said the detector would search for axions in a cylinder of high conductivity copper within the MRI machine.

The MRI machine will generate a large magnetic field, which is one of the conditions that stimulate the conversion of an axion into a photon.

The photons can be detected as flashes of light, and provides scientists, including Dr McAllister and PhD students Paige Taylor and Raj Aryan Singh, with information on the potential mass range of dark matter.

“At the moment the name of the game is ruling things out and that is essentially the scientific method. That narrows down the longs list of places that dark matter can be hiding. We’re chasing dark matter to the edges of the universe to try to figure out where it’s hiding and slowly ruling things out,” Dr McAllister said.

The research is also an opportunity to learn about this particular type of detector, which is the first of its kind.