Abstract: The nature of dark matter remains one of the biggest mysteries in modern science. With plenty of different possible candidates and a wide mass range, Weakly Interactive Massive Particles (WIMPs) usually rises as one of the most promising candidates. The direct detection experiment LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) primarily searches for WIMPs using 7 tonnes of active liquid xenon at the Sanford Underground Research Facility (South Dakota). With this technology, LZ has demonstrated world-leading sensitivity to a wide range of dark matter models. A new analysis from LZ searching for effective field theory and inelastic models of dark matter identifies a single nuclear recoil candidate at 248 keV, in tension with the background-only hypothesis at a global significance of 2.6\u03c3. Whilst this is far from constituting a detection, the event is nevertheless intriguing. In this seminar, I will give an overview of the analysis, discuss the relevant high-energy backgrounds, and explore the wider implications of the event for dark matter searches. I will also introduce how the LZ detector works and highlight some of the other experiment’s most recent results, including the observation of solar neutrinos through Coherent Elastic neutrino-Nucleus Scattering and our latest search for more conventional WIMPs.<\/p>\n
Alberto Us\u00f3n, Institute for Particle and Nuclear Physics at the School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Edinburgh<\/p>","excerpt":"","slug":"seminario-de-temas-actuales-dark-matter","image":false,"all_day":false,"start_date":"2026-10-01 12:00:00","start_date_details":{"year":"2026","month":"10","day":"01","hour":"12","minutes":"00","seconds":"00"},"end_date":"2026-10-01 14:00:00","end_date_details":{"year":"2026","month":"10","day":"01","hour":"14","minutes":"00","seconds":"00"},"utc_start_date":"2026-10-01 10:00:00","utc_start_date_details":{"year":"2026","month":"10","day":"01","hour":"10","minutes":"00","seconds":"00"},"utc_end_date":"2026-10-01 12:00:00","utc_end_date_details":{"year":"2026","month":"10","day":"01","hour":"12","minutes":"00","seconds":"00"},"timezone":"Europe\/Madrid","timezone_abbr":"CEST","cost":"","cost_details":{"currency_symbol":"\u20ac","currency_code":"EUR","currency_position":"suffix","values":[]},"website":"","show_map":true,"show_map_link":true,"hide_from_listings":false,"sticky":false,"featured":false,"categories":[{"name":"Seminarios","slug":"seminarios","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":16,"taxonomy":"tribe_events_cat","description":"","parent":0,"count":9,"filter":"raw","id":16,"urls":{"self":"https:\/\/capa.unizar.es\/index.php?rest_route=\/tribe\/events\/v1\/categories\/16","collection":"https:\/\/capa.unizar.es\/index.php?rest_route=\/tribe\/events\/v1\/categories"}}],"tags":[{"name":"Seminarios","slug":"seminarios","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":315,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":9,"filter":"raw","id":315,"urls":{"self":"https:\/\/capa.unizar.es\/index.php?rest_route=\/tribe\/events\/v1\/tags\/315","collection":"https:\/\/capa.unizar.es\/index.php?rest_route=\/tribe\/events\/v1\/tags"}}],"venue":{"id":128,"author":"1","status":"publish","date":"2019-10-09 16:46:40","date_utc":"2019-10-09 14:46:40","modified":"2019-10-09 16:46:40","modified_utc":"2019-10-09 14:46:40","url":"https:\/\/capa.unizar.es\/?tribe_venue=seminario-de-fisica-nuclear","venue":"Seminario de F\u00edsica Nuclear","slug":"seminario-de-fisica-nuclear","country":"Spain","json_ld":{"@type":"Place","name":"Seminario de F\u00edsica Nuclear","description":"","url":"","address":{"@type":"PostalAddress","addressCountry":"Spain"},"telephone":"","sameAs":""},"show_map":true,"show_map_link":true,"global_id":"capa.unizar.es?id=128","global_id_lineage":["capa.unizar.es?id=128"]},"organizer":[],"custom_fields":[],"json_ld":{"@context":"http:\/\/schema.org","@type":"Event","name":"Seminario de Temas Actuales-Dark Matter: The LUX-ZEPLIN experiment and an intriguing new dark matter search result","description":"<p>Abstract: The nature of dark matter remains one of the biggest mysteries in modern science. With plenty of different possible candidates and a wide mass range, Weakly Interactive Massive Particles […]<\/p>\\n","url":"https:\/\/capa.unizar.es\/?tribe_events=seminario-de-temas-actuales-dark-matter","eventAttendanceMode":"https:\/\/schema.org\/OfflineEventAttendanceMode","eventStatus":"https:\/\/schema.org\/EventScheduled","startDate":"2026-10-01T12:00:00+02:00","endDate":"2026-10-01T14:00:00+02:00","location":{"@type":"Place","name":"Seminario de F\u00edsica Nuclear","description":"","url":"","address":{"@type":"PostalAddress","addressCountry":"Spain"},"telephone":"","sameAs":""},"performer":"Organization"}}