LUX’s photon detecting mechanism is the most sensitive of its kind
Scientists testing the Large Underground Xenon (LUX) experiment have reported promising scientific and technological results today. They have set up the experiment to identify the nature of dark matter, an invisible substance that physicists believe is all around us, making up most of the matter in the universe, but that barely has any effect on our every-day lives. Scientists have published the first results from the Sanford laboratory today, which, they say, validate the experiment's design and performance. The research challenges previous studies that claim 'sightings' of dark matter. Watch a live webcast of the announcement They are now beginning a process to uncover the exact identity of the dark matter particle - a process equivalent to the work done by the Large Hadron Collider in identifying the Higgs boson. Seventeen universities and research institutes in the USA and Portugal, and Imperial College London, UCL, University of Edinburgh in the UK, run the LUX experiment, with most funding coming from the National Science Foundation and Department of Energy in the USA. The new laboratory is sited in a former gold mine nearly one and a half kilometres below the Black Hills in the American state of South Dakota.
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