KAW Grant Awarded for Dark Matter Studies using XENON 1T

by Katherine Freese 31 Oct 2014 Grants, International Cooperation
Published in the "From the Institute" section of Nordita News issue 1, 2014

The Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation has granted 28.5 MSEK for the "Discovering Dark Matter Particles in the Laboratory", an experimental project with Jan Conrad of Stockholm University leading the Swedish effort and with Nordita's Katherine Freese as Co-PI.

The nature of the dark matter in the Universe that comprises 95% of the mass in galaxies including our own Milky Way is as yet unknown. The XENON 1T experiment consists of a tonne of Xenon liquid that produces two pulses of scintillation light when struck by a dark matter particle coming in from the Galaxy. The discovery of dark matter would solve one of the longest outstanding problems in all of modern physics.