Results from the DarkSide-50 experiment

On August 23, 2018, Physical Review Letters published the results from the search for low-mass dark matter with the DarkSide-50 experiment in operation in Hall C of the underground Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso.  

The publication was highlighted on the Physical Review Letters website as one the “Editor’s Suggestions”. Thanks to the ultra-low background underground argon fill of the DarkSide-50 Time Projection Chamber, the experiment set the world best limits for searches of dark matter with mass below 8 GeV/c2, improving previous results by more than one order of magnitude. The DarkSide Collaboration, with its 350 scientists from twelve countries, is busy building at LNGS the DarkSide-20k experiment, approved by LNGS and funded by INFN and by the US NSF in 2017, and designed to lead the field in searches for dark matter of mass above 50 GeV/c2.  Building on the DarkSide-50 success, the Collaboration is planning to develop a proposal for a smaller (1-tonne scale) companion detector, designed to enable a complete search of low-mass dark matter, reaching through the boundary of the so-called “neutrino floor” at 10 GeV/c2 and below."