GrandiLab: Search for Dark Matter with Noble Liquid Technologies
They build specialized, low-background detectors designed to identify rare and low-energy interactions, possibly induced by dark matter interacting with ordinary matter. We have been doing this by contributing to two major experimental efforts in the field: XENON1T (2015-now) and DarkSide-50 (2008-2015), respectively featuring ultrapure xenon and argon as targets for dark matter detection. Both detectors employ the so-called two-phase (gas/liquid) Time Projection Chamber (TPC) technology that allows to simultaneously detect ionization and excitation produced by even tiny energy depositions in the sensitive liquid volume. We are now building XENONnT, an even larger detector featuring with respect to XENOn1T a 4 times larger fiducial mass and a 1/10th background.
Undergraduate Students should reach out to the P.I.
Prof. Luca Grandi
Associate Professor
@ Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics,
@ Enrico Fermi Institute,
@ UChicago Physics Department