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UCL dark matter quantum sensor research showcased at the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition
12 July 2023
A multi-disciplinary research team, led by Cosmoparticle Initiative core members Chamkaur Ghag and Peter Barker, presented a new type of quantum sensor that uses levitation at the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition
A team of researchers led by Chamkaur Ghag and Peter Barker was invited to showcase their work at the Royal Society’s annual Summer Exhibition. They demonstrated a new type of quantum sensor that uses levitation of microscopic glass spheres in a vacuum. The exhibition is the Royal Society’s flagship public engagement event.
The event put together by the team, “Unlocking the secrets of dark matter”, was a great success, with large numbers of the public visiting the demonstration and engaging with a strong team of nine enthusiastic explainers. The goal was to highlight new avenues in detecting the presence of dark matter, a mysterious substance believed to make up more than 80% of the matter in the universe but as-yet not detected in the laboratory.
This cross disciplinary team consisted of AMOPP and HEP group members from the Cosmoparticle Initiative as well as UCLQ. Fiona Alder (a Cosmoparticle PhD student) put together an eye-catching video presentation, while Jonathan Gosling, Markus Rademacher and Henry Bennie (UCLQ) designed the posters. The demonstration, in which people could see and manipulate a single trapped particle, as used in the Quantum Sensors for Dark Matter project, was particularly popular. This was built by current AMOPP Brian Duff summer intern Bohdan Glisevic. The UCL team members were also joined by colleagues from Kings College,representing LeviNet, the levitation network for advanced quantum technologies.
Also invited to the Summer Science Exhibition was Cosmoparticle Initiative co-director Andrew Pontzen who gave a packed-out talk on the use of simulations in cosmology.
Links:
https://royalsociety.org/science-events-and-lectures/2023/07/unlocking-the-secrets-of-dark-matter/
https://www.hep.ucl.ac.uk/darkMatter/qs.shtml
https://royalsociety.org/science-events-and-lectures/2023/07/andrew-pontzen/
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