New Results from the XENON100 Experiment. Presenter: Dr. Elena Aprile
Professor, Project Lead of XENON Collaboration at Columbia University
In astrophysics, weakly interacting massive particles or WIMPs, are hypothetical particles serving as one possible solution to the dark matter problem. These particles interact through the weak force and gravity, and possibly through other interactions no stronger than the weak force. Because they do not interact with electromagnetism they cannot be seen directly, and because they do not interact with the strong nuclear force they do not react strongly with atomic nuclei.
Although the existence of WIMPs in nature is hypothetical at this point, it would resolve a number of astrophysical and cosmological problems related to dark matter. However, as Sean Caroll points out on his blog Cosmic Variance, ‘after a few provocative hints over the last few years, new results in the search for weakly-interacting dark matter have come up empty’.
In this seminar Dr. Aprile presents new results from the XENON experiment, designed to observe WIMPs-nucleon scattering in liquid xenon with unprecedented sensitivity.
First presented in the Dark Attack conference in Switzerland, 2012.
