DarkSide 50 Project Takes Dark-Matter Detection to New Levels
UH Physics Involved in Collaboration

A recent issue of the CERN Courier featured the DarkSide 50 experiment on its cover. UH is one of 26 universities and laboratories, from the U.S., China, Great Britain, Italy, Poland and Russia, collaborating on a program of experiments seeking to take dark-matter detection to a new level of sensitivity.

The DarkSide 50 detector, scheduled for commissioning in December underground at the Gran Sasso National Laboratory in central Italy, will use several innovative techniques which may positively identify dark matter signals, and in addition, suppress backgrounds, leading to an experiment with unprecedented sensitivity. The collaboration has been operating a prototype, DarkSide 10, since September 2011.

Involved from UH are physics professor Ed Hungerford, physics department chair Larry Pinsky, research scientist Anton Empl, research associate Stefano Davini, graduate student Mihee Han, undergraduate student Gulden Othman, and electronic technician George Korga.

Read the CERN Courier article, The DarkSide of Gran Sasso.

- Kathy Major, College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics