Astroparticle Seminar

The PICASSO and DEAP-3600 Dark Matter Search Experiments at SNOLAB

Tony Noble

Queen's University

We live in turbulent times. The overwhelming evidence from high precision astronomical measurements of galactic rotations, galaxy-cluster collisions, and cataclysmic supernova explosions has led to an understanding of the cosmos as one dominated by mysterious forms of dark matter and dark energy. The visible content of the universe, in the form of ordinary baryonic matter, is comparatively small, almost trifling. The nature of this dark matter and dark energy is completely unknown, but the race is on world wide. Sequestered 2 km underground in the SNOLAB facility for astroparticle physics, the PICASSO and DEAP-3600 projects have developed novel detector concepts in an attempt to observe this dark matter directly. This talk will describe the innovative detector technologies being employed and the physics potential that could be realized in the next few years.