A new study led by our LZ group in the Particle Physics theme, has encountered an intriguing particle interaction in their search for dark matter, which might help pave the way for answering one of the biggest unresolved questions about our universe. Dark matter accounts for around 85% of the mass in the universe but it has never been directly detected – until possibly now. The study recorded a single particle interaction, which researchers have struggled to explain with known background signals from normal matter but is compatible with the signature expected from a dark matter interaction. Although this isolated result doesn’t yet meet the statistical threshold for an official discovery, it’s an intriguing step forward.
The Bristol LZ group, led by Professor Henning Flaecher, analysed data collected with the LUX-ZEPLIN experiment, which operates nearly a mile underground at the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) in the US state of South Dakota. The new analysis was presented on 1st September 2026 by Dr. Sam Eriksen in a scientific talk at the 2026 TeV Particle Astrophysics conference in Japan.