Dark Matter: A Challenging Discovery

The search for dark matter is nowadays a major topic in science, as it is believed to account for approximately 85% of the matter in the universe. Astrophysical observations and gravitational calculations show that, without its presence, galaxies would fly apart or would not have formed, if they did not contain a large amount of unseen matter which does not appear to interact with the electromagnetic field – therefore it is called “dark”. The Global Argon Dark Matter Collaboration (GADMC) is a joint US-Canada-UK-Italy research program that pursues a sequence of future detectors to exploit the potential to push the sensitivity for the detection of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) several orders of magnitude beyond current levels. The immediate objective is the DarkSide-20k two-phase detector, currently under construction at the INFN laboratories in Gran Sasso, Italy.

Maurizio Greganti, Deputy Chief of Mission of the Embassy of Italy will open the event, together with Dr. Antonio Zoccoli, President of the Italian National Institute of Nuclear Physics.

The roundtable will see the participation of three prominent scientists: Dr Elena Aprile, Columbia University, Dr. Cristiano Galbiati, Princeton University, and Dr. Arthur McDonald, Queen’s University and 2015 Physics Nobel Laureate.

Dr. Julie E. McEnery from NASA Goddard will moderate the event.