October 31, 2023 is the international Dark Matter Day, the mysterious component representing the large part of all the matter in the universe. The Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN) is hunting it. How?
This day foresees a events around the world that will celebrate the work of thousands of scientists trying to shed light on the most mysterious and dark side of the universe. You can therefore celebrate Halloween in an unusual way by participating in conferences and shows, or by following the numerous live broadcasts and web seminars that will color the day and night of October 31st.
In this view the INFN section of Rome Tor Vergata proposes a web seminar (webinar on MS Teams platform live) with title:
“The DarkSide project for Dark Matter search at Gran Sasso lab”
held by Professor Sandro De Cecco (University of Rome “La Sapienza”) this October 31, starting at 2.20pm Rome time (UTC + 1hour). DarkSide is one of the great experiments of the National Laboratories of Gran Sasso of the INFN (Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso, LNGS), the largest underground physics laboratories in the world, where researches are ongoing to detect particular types of dark particles. Professor Sandro De Cecco entered in the DarkSide experiment in 2014 doing data analysis on the search of dark matter with the DS50 detector, and with simulations, design and construction of the DarkSide-20k a 50 tons dual-phase Liquid Argon detector at LNGS. Since 2020 he is the DarkSide-20k Detector Project Leader.
Dark matter, together with dark energy, makes up about 95 percent of the mass and energy in our universe. There is clear evidence of its existence: if it were not there, for example, the gravitational effects of galaxies could not be explained.
Despite this, we know very little about dark matter.
Scientists are working hard to discover what the 95 percent of the, still unknown universe, is made of, with innovative experiments such as large detectors in underground laboratories, powerful particle beams in accelerators, and detectors and telescopes located both on the Earth surface or in the space on satellites, probes and the space station.
The Dark Matter Day was conceived and organized by the Interactions collaboration. To find out more about research and experiments that the INFN is carrying out, you can visit the INFN Section of Rome Tor Vergata and of the Physics Department of the University of Rome Tor Vergata web sites and (social-web sites like facebook), and the the central national website of the INFN and its social networks (like facebook and twitter), and the LNGS-INFN web site.
Link to the webinar on MS Teams.