China’s latest underground laboratory for detecting dark matter, as outlined in Nature, is now the largest and deepest facility of its kind globally, bringing us closer to unveiling some of the most enigmatic matter in the universe. The completion of the second phase of the China Jinping Underground Laboratory (CJPL-II) in December has resulted in a total lab space of 330,000 cubic meters, exceeding the previous record held by Italy’s Gran Sasso National Laboratory. The natural rock shielding at CJPL-II means that cosmic rays reach the lab underground at just a fraction of the rate they hit the Earth’s surface, which is crucial for identifying tiny dark matter signals.
The addition of 900 cubic meters of water shielding has enhanced the team’s ability to detect even smaller particles, providing improved sensitivity for testing different types of interactions, according to PandaX physicist Ning Zhou. The team’s objective is to develop a xenon detector comparable to Europe’s DARWIN experiment, which has a capacity of 40 tonnes. Zhou indicated that the CJPL-II teams will strive to enhance the sensitivity of their xenon and germanium detectors over the next ten years and expressed hope that the global dark matter research community will collaborate by sharing and combining CJPL-II data sets with their own.
