Many physics experiments requiring low-background environments are carried out in the underground laboratories worldwide. In this theoretical overview physics being probed in those experiments will be reviewed with particular emphasis on core-collapse supernovae, particle dark matter, both two-neutrino and neutrinoless double beta decays as well as laboratory nuclear astrophysics.
The Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) has been operating for 15 years as an international facility dedicated to advancing compelling multidisciplinary underground scientific research, including physics, biology, geology, and engineering. Seven primary underground levels at SURF offer a unique environment that allows researchers the opportunity to explore an array of important...
The Black Hills of South Dakota is known as He Sapa or Paha Sapa to my ancestors, my people, the Lakota. The Lakota and other Tribal Nations have had special ties to this area for thousands of years. We continue this special connection. For the Lakota, the Black Hills are the heart of everything that is, the center of our universe, where special sites remain vital to our existence. It is the...
Neutrino oscillations provide a mechanism to constrain most of the remaining known unknowns in particle physics and are becoming a powerful probe of new physics scenarios. I will discuss the impact of the oscillation parameters on other areas of physics and how we will detect them in neutrino oscillation experiments. I will also discuss some of the latest anomalies in neutrino oscillation data...
The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) has exciting physics prospects on the horizon, including determining the neutrino mass ordering, measuring \delta_{CP} with sufficient precision to discover CP violation in neutrino oscillation, and detecting neutrinos from core-collapse supernovae and other astrophysical phenomena. DUNE will utilize a high-intensity neutrino beam produced at...
Long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiments present some of the most compelling paths towards beyond-the-standard-model physics. They do this by utilising intense, well controlled muon neutrino beams along with near detectors to constrain neutrino flux, cross sections, and backgrounds whilst measuring electron neutrino appearance and muon neutrino disappearance. By observing these neutrino...
Candidate bacterial phylum Omnitrophota has never been grown in axenic culture and is poorly understood. Here, we combined analysis of 421 Omnitrophota genomes representing six classes and 276 species and show that they are prevalent in water, sediments, and soils globally. Fluorescence-activated cell sorting and differential size filtration showed ultra-small (~0.2 μm) cells to be common...
The Black Hills of South Dakota contain extensive natural cave systems, including some of the longest mapped caves in the world. Carbonate caves globally are are known to host a diversity of microorganisms; however, we know comparatively little about the biology and geochemistry of caves in the Black Hills region. As a first step towards exploring the diversity of microbial life in natural...
The Karlsruhe Tritium Neutrino (KATRIN) experiment has pushed the measurement of absolute neutrino mass scale down to the sub-eV region for the first time. The $\beta$ electrons from molecular tritium decay are measured with high precision, using the magnetic adiabatic collimation with an electrostatic filter (MAC-E filter). A blind analysis for the first two scientific campaigns of KATRIN...
The Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events (CUORE) is the first bolometric experiment searching for 0νββ decay that has been able to reach the one-tonne mass scale. The detector, located at the LNGS in Italy, consists of an array of 988 TeO2 crystals arranged in a compact cylindrical structure of 19 towers. CUORE began its first physics data run in 2017 at a base temperature of...
The Earth's subsurface is host to significant and diverse microbial populations. The nature of this biomass is poorly characterized, partially due to the inherent difficulty of sampling, in situ studies, and isolation of the in situ microbes. Recently, many studies have focused on harnessing the ability of microbes to interact extracellularly with redox-active substrates for energy/growth....
Nuclear reactors have played a key role in advancing the knowledge regarding neutrinos. For example, the first detection of a neutrino used a nuclear reactor as the source. Moreover, recent reactor neutrino experiments found clear evidence of neutrino oscillations and opened up the parameters' measurement precision era. There is a rich physics that we can explore with reactor neutrinos, and...
AMoRE (Advanced Mo-based Rare process Experiment) is an international collaboration searching for the neutrinoless double-beta decay of 100Mo using molybdate scintillating crystal with metallic magnetic calorimeters as low-temperature sensors. AMoRE-I, as the second phase experiment, has been installed at the Yangyang underground laboratory (Y2L) and accumulates the data under radon reduced...
Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) are gaining attention in the family of polyesters polymers due to its biodegradability and biocompatibility. The polymer molecular structure is decided by the biosynthetic pathways of microbes employed for PHA synthesis which is influenced by the bacterial species, substrate utilized, and the culturing conditions provided. There are more than100 PHA polymer...
MicroBooNE is a liquid argon time projection chamber detector designed to address the excess of low energy electromagnetic events observed by the MiniBooNE detector. Two hypotheses for this excess are explored by MicroBooNE: an electron-like excess coming from a larger than expected number of charged current (CC) $\nu_e$ interactions and a photon-like excess coming from neutrino-induced...
Methane is one of the most common sources of energy and carbon in the deep biosphere, and methanotrophy is hypothesized to sustain diverse microbial communities alongside chemolithoautotrophy in subsurface systems. However, the extent of the contribution of methanotrophy to primary production and C-cycling remains unknown, due to our lack of knowledge about the distribution, diversity,...
Neutrinoless double beta decay (0$\nu \beta \beta $) is a rare decay process and is considered as the most promising way to prove the Majorana nature of neutrinos, that is neutrinos are their own antiparticles. The Large Enriched Germanium Experiment for Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay (LEGEND) aims to build a phased $^{\mathrm{76}}$Ge-based 0$\nu \beta \beta $ decay experimental program with...
The study of scintillation light yield from liquid argon is interesting for many nuclear and particle physics experiments. Doping a few amounts of xenon in liquid argon could significantly shift the wavelength of scintillation light, time profile, and increase yield of the scintillation light. The measurement will be performed using BACoN system at the University of New Mexico. It consists of...
The snowball chamber is analogous to the bubble and cloud chambers in that it relies on a phase transition, but it is new to high-energy particle physics. The concept of the snowball chamber relies on supercooled water, which can remain metastable for long time periods in a sufficiently clean and smooth container (on the level of the critical radius for nucleation). The results gleaned from...
The study of scintillation light yield from liquid argon is interesting for many nuclear and particle physics experiments. Doping a few amounts of xenon in liquid argon could significantly shift the wavelength of scintillation light, time profile, and increase yield of the scintillation light. The measurement will be performed using BACoN system at the University of New Mexico. It consists of...
SingleCube is a cubic-foot pixelated liquid argon (LAr) time-projection chamber (LArTPC) that is a small-scale prototype of the DUNE near detector. It operates in the physics department at Colorado State University (CSU) and it is used to test new technologies and techniques for the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE). When charged particles pass through LAr in the detector, they...
The ICARUS T600 LArTPC detector successfully ran for three years at the underground LNGS laboratories, providing a first sensitive search for LSND-like anomalous electron neutrino appearance in the CNGS beam. After a significant overhauling at CERN, the T600 detector has been placed in its experimental hall at Fermilab, filled with liquid argon, raised to the nominal drift high voltage, and...
The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) is located at the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) in the former Homestake Mine in Lead, SD. The DUNE detector will be comprised of four individual 10 kton liquid argon modules. The first module is scheduled to be operational in July 2026.
For DUNE it is important to understand the detector response to low low-energy neutrino...
Consisting of three large liquid-argon time projection chambers (LArTPCs) located along Fermilab’s Booster Neutrino Beam, the Short-Baseline Neutrino (SBN) Program is a neutrino oscillation experiment that seeks to address anomalous results from the LSND and MiniBooNE experiments, where excesses of electron-like events could possibly be interpreted as originating from light sterile neutrinos. ...
Despite the lack of direct evidence, there is already an abundance of indirect evidence that points to a non-luminous new form of matter that exists in significant quantities throughout our universe. The theory of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) provides an attractive new candidate particle for dark matter. It describes a relatively heavy electrically-neutral particle that only...
Highly sensitive experiments, such as the LZ dark matter experiment, have backgrounds due to radon emanating out of materials. The radon emanation system at SD Mines is used to reduce radon background by measuring the emanation rate of radon out of these materials. If the emanation rate is too high, those objects can be replaced. Analysis of the emanation rate requires corrections when the...
The CYGNUS collaboration is composed of several directional recoil detection research groups that are proposing a large-scale experiment with a network of directional detectors dispersed globally. This experiment is attractive in the context of dark matter searches because it can penetrate the neutrino floor and has a practical way of confirming the galactic origin of a detected nuclear recoil...
Microbial exopolysaccharides (EPSs) exhibit diverse functionalities and offer a variety of structural options that can be altered to fit a specific purpose. Recent decades have seen the utilization of EPSs as a potential option to assist in the field of drug delivery. Commonly used synthetic polymers have been related to issues regarding toxicity, immunogenicity, unwanted polymer-drug...
Neutrinoless double beta decay (0$\nu \beta \beta $) is a rare decay process and is considered as the most promising way to prove the Majorana nature of neutrinos, that is neutrinos are their own antiparticles. The Large Enriched Germanium Experiment for Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay (LEGEND) aims to build a phased $^{\mathrm{76}}$Ge-based 0$\nu \beta \beta $ decay experimental program with...
The light yield of a small undoped CsI crystal directly coupled with two SiPMs at about 77 Kelvin (K) was measured to be 43.0 ± 1.1 photoelectrons (PE) per keV electron-equivalent (keVee) using X and gamma-ray peaks from an 241Am radioactive source. The operation of an undoped CsI crystal coupled with two SiPMs at 77 K was the first attempt in the world. The high light yield together with some...
Plastics have revolutionized many industries, but their desirable properties also bring disposal challenges. Importantly, plastics are recalcitrant to biological degradation and have negative impacts on the ecosystems in which they accumulate. This research seeks to develop a methodology to depolymerize and convert plastic waste into a commodity. Currently, plastic-rich samples have been...
Sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB) have a unique ability to grow under anaerobic conditions using sulfate as a terminal electron acceptor, reducing it to hydrogen sulfide. SRB thrives in many natural environments, deep subsurface environments, and processing facilities in an industrial setting. considering to their ability to alter the physicochemical properties of underlying metals, SRB can...
Fixation of carbon dioxide via direct biocatalytic conversion to liquid fuel presents a possible solution to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and produce a valuable product. Studies have been conducted on reducing carbon dioxide electrochemically and enzymatically; however, scale up of these methods is for the most part, nonexistent. Cultivation of microorganisms capable of fixing carbon...
Rare Earth Elements (REEs, lanthanides) are a category of 15 metallic elements in the periodic table that have similar physical and chemical properties. These lanthanides are used in a variety of products, including nuclear reactor components, cell phones, magnets, camera lenses, and batteries, and as such are fundamental to industrialized cultures around the world. Lanthanides were supposed...
The particulate methane monooxygenase (pMMO), a membrane-bound enzyme having three-subunits (α, β, and γ) and copper-containing centers, is found in most of the methanotrophs that selectively catalyze the oxidation of methane into methanol. Active sites in pMMO of Methylosinus trichosporium OB3b were determined by docking the modeled structure with ethylbenzene, toluene, 1,3-dibutadiene, and...
Copper (Cu) is an essential micronutrient required as a co-factor in the catalytic center of many enzymes in bacteria. However, excess Cu is hazardous and can generate pleiotropic effects. Cu has been the metal of choice for piping used in household water distribution systems. Due to its leaching from pipelines, Cu levels are present at elevated concentrations in ground water and in soils...
Methane (CH4) is a greenhouse gas (GHG) with a Global Warming Potential of 28 - 36 over 100 years. Mining activities (e.g., coal mining) account for 11% of global methane emissions from anthropogenic activities, and CH4 that continues to be emitted from abandoned mines has higher CH4 content (~50 percent higher) than previously estimated. Advancement of the biological method for coal mine...
Neutrinos can change flavor content on their way from their point of origin to the detector via a phenomenon known as neutrino oscillations. Neutrino oscillations have been confirmed over the past two decades in a wide range of experiments, and their measured parameters are now relatively consistent with the modified standard model (SM). However, there are hints that small deviations from SM...
The COHERENT collaboration studies Coherent Elastic Neutrino-Nucleus Scattering (CEvNS) with high-quality pion-decay-at-rest neutrinos from the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) at Oak Ridge National Lab, Tennessee. Through CEvNS detection we can know more about the properties of neutrinos and nuclei. Neutrons that survive thick shielding between the source and COHERENT detectors are a serious...
The United States contains an estimated three million oil and gas wells that were abandoned after they stopped producing economical quantities of hydrocarbons. State regulations require these to be sealed, but the proper plugging and abandoning (P&A) procedure for a well can cost about $100,000. It is often cheaper to maintain the annual lease payment and shut in the well. Over time, ownership...
Detector grade High-Purity Germanium (HP-Ge) crystals are largely needed for rare event physics. At the University of South Dakota (USD), we have successfully built a product chain that can purify the commercially available germanium raw materials to detector-grade HP-Ge crystals and fabricated them into Ge detectors. High-purity germanium crystals with diameters up to 12 cm were grown by the...
This talk will review the status of DUNE detectors #3-4 and the DUNE Module of Opportunity Workshop.
Detector grade High-Purity Germanium (HP-Ge) crystals are largely needed for rare event physics. At the University of South Dakota (USD), we have successfully built a product chain that can purify the commercially available germanium raw materials to detector-grade HP-Ge crystals and fabricated them into Ge detectors. Zone refining is a prerequisite procedure to purify germanium ingots. The...
SoLAr is a new concept for a liquid argon neutrino detector technology which aims to extend the sensitivities of these devices to the MeV energy range, extending the physics reach of these next-generation detectors to include solar neutrinos. The SoLAr technology will be based on the concept of monolithic light-charge pixel-based readout which addresses the main requirements for such a...
The high-purity germanium (HPGe) detectors are well known for operating at liquid nitrogen temperature and cryogenic temperature at mK. Very little is known about Ge detector operating at liquid helium temperature. It is expected that operating Ge detectors at liquid helium temperature reduces thermal noise and hence allows the detectors to have better energy resolution in comparing to...
SURF has proven to be an excellent venue for studying the effects and prediction of fracturing of rocks under pressure. Beginning in 2015, kISMET (Permeability (k) and Induced Seismicity Management for Energy Technologies) followed by the EGS Collab project (Enhanced Geothermal Systems) have determined a wide range of rock mechanical properties of the Poorman Formation carbonate mica phyllites...
We present the calculations of using advanced germanium (Ge) detectors to search for dark photons in terms of absorption and conversion to electrons. A Ge detector utilizing internal charge amplification for the charge carriers created by the ionization of impurities is a novel technology with experimental sensitivity for detecting dark photons. We calculate the sensitivity of such a Ge...
We have been successfully growing HPGe single crystals for a decade here at University of South Dakota by using the Czochralski method. These HPGe detector-grade single crystals are fabricated into radiation detectors used in many research and application areas such as rare event physics. However, new semiconductor is still necessary especially in high resolution X-rays and gamma rays...
Microorganisms are tiny cell factories that produce several metabolite, many of these are useful to mankind. Microbes can be efficiently utilized for the synthesis of fuels and high value chemicals. Most of the chemical reactions, which are harmful to the environment, can be replaced by environmentally friendly biological routes through the use of microbes. Environmental sustainability is the...
Baryon number violation has been a subject of experimental and theoretical scrutiny for decades. Although it has not been detected so far, the next generation of large neutrino detectors will seek to improve upon the limits set by past and current experiments and will cover a range of lifetimes predicted by several Grand Unified Theories. In this talk, we will summarize theoretical motivations...
Next-generation neutrinoless double-beta decay (0$\nu\beta\beta$) searches seek the Majorana nature of neutrinos and the existence of a lepton number violating process by covering the 0$\nu\beta\beta$ half-life corresponding to the inverted-ordering neutrino mass scale, assuming the light Majorana neutrino exchange mechanism. The LEGEND experiment, building from the experience of Majorana...
nEXO is a 5 tonne monolithic liquid xenon (LXe) time projection chamber (TPC) planned to search for the neutrinoless double beta decay of $^{136}$Xe with an estimated half-life sensitivity of >10$^{28}$ years at 90% C.L.. Advancements have been made in terms of detector design, signal modelling and data analysis to support a refined estimate of the sensitivity and discovery potential of the...
CUPID is an upcoming cryogenic bolometric 0$\nu\beta\beta$ experiment with plans to provide sensitivity to the Majorana nature of neutrinos at the scales corresponding to the inverted mass ordering.
Designed based on the expertise, infrastructure, and experience of CUORE, CUPID-0, and CUPID-Mo experiments, CUPID will utilize 1596 Li$_2$MoO$_4$ scintillating crystals amounting to 240 kg of...
Microbiome of environmental surfaces and atmosphere samples in the International Space Station (ISS) were characterized in order to examine the relationship to crew and hardware maintenance. The Microbial Tracking projects generated a microbial census of the ISS environments using advanced molecular microbial community analyses along with traditional culture-based methods. Since the “omics”...
Even more than 60 years after the groundbreaking publication by Burbidge, Burbidge, Fowler, and Hoyle, Nuclear Astrophysics is still a thriving and exciting research field at the interface of nuclear physics, astrophysics, and particle physics. Current topic is associated with the evolution of stars and its impact on the production of heavy elements but also the source strength of solar...
A summary of proposed new ideas and technologies for a different detector module of opportunity for the DUNE far detector underground at Sanford Lab will be presented. The potential new physics reach for the DUNE program is discussed as well for some selected ideas and technologies.
Massive and deep underground detectors such as the future Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) will offer a unique opportunity to search for rare, beyond-Standard Model (BSM) physics signals. One such BSM process is nucleus-bound neutron-antineutron oscillation—a baryon number violating process that produces a unique, star-like topological signature that should be easily recognizable...
Traditionally, the study of solar and supernova neutrinos served a dual purpose. Solar neutrino measurements were the first hint of neutrino flavor physics. Although solar neutrino flavor conversion is now well understood, solar neutrinos still offer a unique environment to study neutrino properties while they also allow to peer into the inside of a star. Similarly, supernova neutrinos probe...
The PandaX-4T experiment located at China Jinping Underground Laboratory is a dual-phase xenon direct dark matter detection experiment, with 4-ton scale liquid xenon as target material in the sensitive volume. Recently, PandaX-4T has completed the detector construction and the subsequent commissioning run. In this talk, I will provide an overview on the performance of PandaX-4T detector and...
This talk will provide an overview of prospects for experimental measurements of astrophysical neutrinos. A brief motivation will be given, with a focus on low-energy solar neutrinos, and a range of experimental approaches will be discussed. The sensitivity of future detectors -- both those under construction and those proposed -- will be presented, with focus on scintillation-based...
The DarkSide program already produced world-class results for
both the low mass ($M_{WIMP}<10GeV/c^2$) and high mass
($M_{WIMP}>100GeV/c^2$) direct detection search for dark matter
with its primary DarkSide-50 detector. Operating since late 2013, it is a
50-kg-active-mass dual-phase Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber
(TPC), filled with low radioactivity argon from an underground...
The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) is an international project that will study neutrinos and search for phenomena predicted by theories Beyond the Standard Model (BSM). DUNE will use a 70-kton liquid argon time projection chamber (LArTPC) located more than a kilometer underground. The excellent imaging capabilities of the LArTPC technology, in addition to the large size and...
The 2nd generation direct detection dark matter experiment LZ will perform the most sensitive direct search for weakly-interacting massive particles (WIMPs). LZ is located at 4850 feet underground at the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) in Lead, South Dakota. LZ is employing a two-phase xenon detector with an active mass of 7 tonnes. WIMPs could interact in the cryogenic liquid...
Over the past decade state-of-the-art computer simulations of core-collapse supernovae by multiple modeling groups have converged on a mechanism for successful explosions based upon a combination of neutrino heating and turbulence. The neutrinos, gravitational waves and electromagnetic messages that we shall detect from the next supernova in the Milky Way will allow us to test this paradigm in...
JUNO is a multi-purpose 20 kton liquid scintillator neutrino detector under construction in the southeast of China at a baseline of 52.5 km from eight nuclear reactors. The experiment will have a rich program in neutrino oscillation physics using reactor antineutrinos, as well as in the study of neutrinos from a variety of natural sources including the Sun, the Earth, and supernovae. The...
The LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) experiment is sensitive not only to dark matter Weakly Interacting Massive Particle (WIMP) interactions, but also to those of low-energy neutrinos. In particular, 8B (Boron-8) solar neutrinos from natural nuclear fusion processes in our Sun should lead to dozens of events above threshold over the lifetime of LZ, appearing in the same region of event-type parameter space as...
The observation of neutrons converting to antineutrons and/or sterile neutrons would demonstrate Baryon Number Violation (BNV) for the first time. BNV is an essential condition needed to produce the matter/anti-matter asymmetry in the universe and appears in a number of theories beyond the Standard Model. Furthermore, the existence of sterile neutrons would address the dark matter problem. ...
MicroBooNE is an 85-tonne active mass liquid argon time projection chamber (LArTPC) at Fermilab. It has excellent calorimetric, spatial and energy resolution and is exposed to two neutrino beams, which make it a powerful detector not just for neutrino physics, but also for Beyond the Standard Model (BSM) physics. The experiment has competitive sensitivity to heavy neutral leptons possibly...
The LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) experiment is a WIMP direct detection experiment using a dual-phase xenon time projection chamber with a 7 ton active volume, expecting science results in 2022. In a rare-event experiment such as LZ, it is important to identify events stemming from unexpected backgrounds, errors in reconstruction, and abnormalities in detector function. General-purpose, unsupervised anomaly...
The EXO-200 Collaboration searched for neutrinoless double beta decay ($0\nu\beta\beta$) using a liquid xenon time projection chamber filled with ~150 kg of enriched $^{136}$Xe from September 2011 to December 2018. The use of a multi-dimensional analysis including calorimetric, spatial and topological information for the events allowed EXO-200 to perform one of the most sensitive searches for...
LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) is a dark matter experiment located at the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) in South Dakota. LZ is expected to explore new regimes of experimental sensitivity to a variety of dark matter candidates, notably Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs). In pursuing new physics, it is important to ensure results are not influenced by biases towards achieving a...
Finding evidence of neutrinoless double beta decay would reveal the Majorana nature of the neutrino and give insight into the origins of the matter-antimatter asymmetry in the universe, the smallness of neutrino mass, and the symmetry structure of the Standard Model. The NEXT collaboration is developing a sequence of high pressure xenon gas time projection chambers with the aim of creating a...
Recently developed science-grade Skipper Charge-Coupled Devices (Skipper-CCDs) have unprecedented sensitivity to low-energy particle interactions in Silicon and are an outstanding technology to search for ultra-light dark-matter candidates. SENSEI (Sub-Electron Noise Skipper Experimental Instrument) is the first experiment to implement Skipper-CCDs for this purpose, achieving world-leading...
SNO+ is a kilo-tonne scale low background neutrino detector with the primary goal of searching for neutrinoless double beta decay ($0\nu\beta\beta$). The experiment's target volume is currently filled with liquid scintillator, providing the scope for background characterisation as well as measurement of reactor, geo, and low-energy solar neutrinos. The scintillator will be loaded with natural...
COSINE-100 is the joint effort between KIMS and DM-Ice. It is a direct-detection dark matter search experiment with the goal of testing DAMA/LIBRA's claim of an annual modulation, using the same NaI(Tl) target. COSINE-100 experiment has been collecting physics data since September 2016 at the Yangyang underground laboratory, South Korea. It consists of ~106 kg of low background NaI(Tl)...
A discovery of neutrinoless double beta decay (0νββ) would establish that neutrinos are their own antiparticles, prove total lepton number violation, and provide a mechanism for generating non-zero neutrino masses. The MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR experiment searches for 0νββ in $^{76}$Ge with two shielded modules of high purity germanium (HPGe) detectors, ~30 kg of which are enriched to 88% in...
The NOvA experiment is a long-baseline accelerator neutrino experiment. It uses the upgraded NuMI beam from Fermilab and measures electron neutrino appearance and muon neutrino disappearance at its Far Detector in Ash River, Minnesota. NOvA is the first neutrino experiment that implemented convolutional neural networks in event reconstruction. NOvA is also developing new deep-learning...
Gas Time Projection Chambers (TPCs) with highly segmented readouts based on micropattern gaseous detectors (MPGDs) are capable of measuring the detailed topology and direction of low-energy nuclear recoils and electron recoils, in real time. This unique capability enables new measurements, and is also highly desirable for probing below the neutrino floor by distinguishing between dark matter...
During the last decade, research of machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) has gone through an explosive evolution and made impacts across many domains of science and human lives. AI/ML models in computer vision can perform high quality analysis of image data from physics experiments, and models developed for natural language processing are applied to analyze sequential data....
The search for particle dark matter has seen tremendous progress and developments in the last decade. One of the primary methods for understanding the particle nature of dark matter is through direct detection, and underground laboratories such as SURF have been crucial in these efforts. In this talk, I will provide an overview of the progress made in dark matter direct detection and what we...
The XENONnT experiment, the successor of XENON1T, sets out for the direct detection of dark matter for more than one order of magnitude in sensitivity beyond the current best limits. XENONnT uses a dual-phase Time Projection Chamber with a total of 8.5 tons of liquid xenon, of which 6 tons are in the active volume. The experiment is currently in operation underground at the Laboratori...
LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) is a direct detection dark matter experiment located at the Sanford Underground Research Facility in Lead, South Dakota. It features a two-phase xenon time projection chamber, surrounded by an instrumented xenon “skin” and liquid scintillator active vetoes. The active region of the xenon TPC contains 7 tonnes of liquid xenon with a 5.6 tonne fiducial volume, allowing us to...
Neutrinoless double beta decay (0$\nu \beta \beta $) is a rare decay process and is considered as the most promising way to prove the Majorana nature of neutrinos, that is neutrinos are their own antiparticles. The Large Enriched Germanium Experiment for Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay (LEGEND) aims to build a phased $^{\mathrm{76}}$Ge-based 0$\nu \beta \beta $ decay experimental program with...
The EGS Collab project, funded by the US Department of Energy Geothermal Technologies Office, is performing intensively monitored rock stimulation and flow tests at the 10-m scale at the Sanford Underground Research Laboratory to inform challenges in implementing enhanced geothermal systems (EGS). We are gathering data and observations from the field tests and comparing to models to understand...
