Grant: Canada Excellence Research Chairs

The proposed research program concerns the identification of Dark Matter. Since the 1930's, numerous astronomical, astrophysical observations and measurements point to the presence of a large mass of invisible matter in our universe - Dark Matter - which is roughly 6 times the size of known matter. Most scientists now agree that this invisible Dark Matter consists of new elementary particles. These harmless particles of the cosmos cross paths with normal matter most of the time without stopping. However, sometimes these particles will hit one atom. These interactions occur so rarely and so weakly that one needs to go deep underground to avoid all interference from parasites or background signals induced by cosmic rays. Extremely sensitive detectors protected from perturbations by thick shields are required to detect these weak interactions.SNOLAB, 2 km underground in the Vale Creighton Mine near Sudbury, ON, is the deepest and cleanest laboratory on the planet, and an ideal environment for the search for mysterious Dark Matter particles . The proposed research program of the CERC in Particle Astrophysics is twofold. It will strengthen Canadian presence in an ambitious joint North-American/Europe SNOLAB project to search for low mass Dark Matter particles involving hundreds of sophisticated Germanium detectors cooled to a temperature close to absolute zero, and will facilitate sharing and transfer of expertise and knowledge between European and Canadian researchers. In addition, the proposed research programs will develop, build and operate at SNOLAB a gaseous spherical detector several meters in diameter - the first of its kind able to detect extremely tiny impacts from very light Dark Matter particles, thereby opening new windows of exploration. This type of detector has a wide spectrum of applications and can be used, for example, in easy- to-operate nuclear reactor monitoring, low- level neutron spectroscopy, and gamma spectroscopy in harsh environments.