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Cavendish HEP Seminars: Deep Science @ Boulby Underground Laboratory: The search for Dark Matter and beyond in the UK’s deep underground science facility.
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Europe/London
Ray Dolby Centre Seminar Room B, B2.002
Ray Dolby Centre Seminar Room B, B2.002
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Description
The UKRI/STFC Boulby Underground Laboratory is the UK’s deep underground science facility. Operating in working mine in NE England, it is one of the few special facilities in the world suited to hosting studies requiring ultra-low background radiation experimental space and/or general access to the deep underground environment.
For many years the primary research undertaken at Boulby was the direct detection of Dark Matter - the missing mass of the universe - and it is here that the UK has made many important technological advances in the field that are being used by the most sensitive Dark Matter detectors operating the world today. The search for Dark Matter goes on - and Boulby continues to pay an important role. Meanwhile the range of science hosted at the facility has dramatically grown, to now including pure and applied projects in low background particle physics (Dark Matter, neutrino studies, nuclear security and more), Earth and environmental sciences (sustainable energy storage, seismology, Carbon Capture and Storage), biology/astrobiology, planetary exploration technology development, quantum sensor and quantum computing technologies and R&D.
The interest in using Boulby for projects in all of these areas is growing and Boulby is now expanding its facilities, creating a new truly world-class underground facility for multidisciplinary underground science in the UK from the early 2030s. Boulby is also one of the few world underground sites currently being considered for hosting the next-generation two-phase Xenon rare-event detector ‘XLZD’ - a major international particle physics project and the most sensitive WIMP dark matter detector yet, potentially to be built on (under) UK soil,.
This talk will give an overview of life and science in the current Boulby facility, and the plans for future development.