WIMP Direct Detection Research

The Centre is pursuing several research avenues in its search for WIMP dark matter. The most mature of these is the SABRE experiment, though we are also pursuing research into other WIMP experiments in the research and development phase – including Cygnus and the low mass WIMP program. The research activity, carried out mostly at the Centre nodes, will create a pipeline leading to future major underground dark matter experiments in Australia.

The general idea behind WIMP direct detection is that occasionally, one of these heavy WIMPs will collide with a nucleus of some material in our detector, and impart some energy, which we can then attempt to detect above the background noise.