The LUX ZEPLIN (LZ) experiment, a global research effort involving over 200 scientists and engineers from 40 institutions worldwide, has released the results of its first experimental run. The study, published in Physical Review Letters, sets new constraints on dark matter interactions and could inform future searches for weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs).
The LZ detector, located at the Sanford Underground Research Facility in South Dakota, is designed to analyze data collected from liquid xenon, a dense liquid phase of the noble gas found in the Earth’s atmosphere. When a particle interacts with this liquid, it produces a flash of light that the team uses to search for WIMPs.
According to Sam Eriksen, co-author of the paper, there is no reason to assume dark matter will interact with regular matter in the simplest way, so it’s essential to consider more complex interactions. The study tested five well-motivated interactions and found evidence that a WIMP could consist of multiple charged particles rather than a single particle.
The LZ detector contains 7 tons of liquid xenon, making it one of the most radioactively pure volumes of space on Earth for nuclear recoils. Despite having few events per day, the team is still searching for signs of dark matter interactions using statistical analysis to distinguish them from regular matter interactions.
Although the first search yielded no signals, it has constrained properties of dark matter and allows for dark matter theories to be refined. The study’s results could soon help improve dark matter theories by allowing theoretical physicists to better model the behavior of WIMPs.
Future data collected by the LZ detector will enable the team to set further constraints on WIMP interactions, potentially contributing to future detection of signatures associated with these elusive particles. With more events to analyze and refine their statistical measures, the team is now more sensitive to dark matter interactions and hopes to find evidence in the near future.
Source: https://phys.org/news/2025-01-lz-science-constraints-dark-interactions.html