IoP Public Seminar: Search for Dark Matter in the LZ experiment

Professor Dan Tovey is taking the stage at the Hicks Building on Monday 26 October, as part of the University of Sheffield's Institute of Physics public outreach series. The talk is titled Search for Dark Matter in the LZ experiment, and it centres on a piece of evidence reported in September 2026 by an international team of physicists working at an experiment located in a gold mine in South Dakota, USA.

Dark matter is one of those things that sounds like a bit of a riddle until you hear it explained: it's the invisible stuff that makes up most of the universe, yet it doesn't emit or reflect light, so we can't see it with any telescope we've got. The LZ experiment is one of the big efforts trying to catch it in the act. The team works deep underground in that South Dakota mine to shield their equipment from the noise of cosmic rays, and Tovey will be talking through the latest findings from that work.

He'll be drawing on that September report to discuss what it actually means for the search for dark matter and, by extension, for our understanding of the universe. It's a public seminar, so it's aimed at a general audience rather than just people who spend their days in a lab. If you've ever wondered what's going on with the missing bulk of the cosmos, this is a good place to get a handle on it.

Tea and coffee are served in the Barry Jackson room before the session begins, so there's time to grab a drink and a chat before things get started. The talk is in Lecture Theatre 07 at the Hicks Building, Broomhall, S3 7RH, starting at 17:00. Entry is free.