New horizons opening in dark matter detection

Chamkaur Ghag and Peter Barker have been awarded a £500K grant following their bid to UKRI's Quantum Technologies for Fundamental Physics (QTFP) programme. This success will enable them and their team to search for ultra-light dark matter with levitated quantum opto-mechanical sensors. The grant builds on work they have been carrying out within the Cosmoparticle Initiative. The QTFP grant will support two postdoctoral researchers to develop two different types of sensors. Direct detection of dark matter is one of the highest priorities in science at the moment.  

Chamkaur Ghag and Peter Barker share this success with their PhD students. Fiona Alder (HEP) worked with Robert James (HEP) and Jonathan Gosling (AMOPP).  

Chamkaur Ghag says: “The proposal builds on work we accelerated through the Cosmoparticle Initiative and relies heavily on the excellent work of our PhD students, with Fiona funded through the Cosmoparticle Initiative.” 

Peter Barker says: “The programme builds on our expertise and the equipment support via the Department of Physics and Astronomy at UCL as well as our ongoing programme in levitated quantum optomechanics."

Links: Quantum Technologies for Fundamental Physics | NQTP (ukri.org)