Deep Talks: Putting Together the Puzzle to Understand Our Universe with the LUX-ZEPLIN Experiment

This public presentation, at the Sanford Lab Homestake Visitor Center in Lead, will include an overview of the latest findings of the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) experiment at SURF by Dr. Alvine Kamaha, an assistant professor of physics at the University of California, Los Angeles, and one of the scientists leading LZ. 

Astronomical observations suggest that about 85% of the matter in the universe exists in an invisible, yet-to-be-discovered form known as dark matter. Unveiling its nature remains one of the most compelling challenges in modern physics. Around the world, numerous experiments are pursuing this mystery through diverse detection technologies, seeking to uncover what dark matter is made of. 

One of the leading efforts is LUX ZEPLIN (LZ), the U.S. flagship dark matter experiment housed deep underground at the Sanford Underground Research Facility in South Dakota. LZ uses a large, ultrapure tank of liquid xenon to primarily search for tiny signals from proposed dark matter particles, including Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs), one of the most compelling candidates. Since it began operation in 2021, LZ has demonstrated unprecedented sensitivity to high-mass WIMP particles, with published world-leading results in 2022 and 2024. In this talk, Dr. Kamaha will describe the current status of the experiment and report on new results from the latest analysis. It will conclude with an outlook on the future of LZ and dark matter research in general.

How to attend:

Deep Talks will be held at the Sanford Lab Homestake Visitor Center (160 W. Main Street) in Lead, South Dakota. The event begins at 5 p.m. MT with a social hour, featuring beverages from Crow Peak Brewing Company (21+ only) and light refreshments. Speaker presentations will begin at 6 p.m. MT.

Deep Talks is made possible by Crow Peak Brewing Company, Edward Jones Financial Advisor – Chris Mitchell, RCS Construction, and Charles & Jolene Lichtenwalner.

About the Speaker:  

Alvine Kamaha is an Assistant Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and the current Chair of the Institutional Board of the LUX–ZEPLIN (LZ) experiment. She earned her Ph.D. at Queen’s University in Canada, working within the SNOLAB research group. She later joined the LZ collaboration, where she led several components of the ambient background-mitigation campaign during the experiment’s construction phase. She also served as the LZ Calibration Operations Coordinator, overseeing the installation and commissioning of LZ’s state-of-the-art calibration systems—systems that provide a deep understanding of the detector response and enhance the experiment’s sensitivity to a wide range of signals. She now leads her research group at UCLA, focusing on developing novel calibration sources for xenon TPC microphysics and exploring new search opportunities for rare physics processes beyond the Standard Model enabled by LZ’s enhanced sensitivity.