dark matter

Building on her earlier work with quantum amplifiers for a leading dark matter experiment, Rakshya Khatiwada will use a four-qubit entangled system to test whether it offers a sensing advantage when exposed to a simulated dark matter signal. The project, based at Fermilab, could open the door to detecting dark matter candidates such as axions and dark photons.

Fermilab’s Christina Wang received the American Physical Society’s Mitsuyoshi Tanaka Award in Experimental Particle Physics for developing novel techniques to detect dark matter, a substance theorized to comprise approximately 85% of all matter in the universe

Christina Wang, a postdoctoral researcher and Lederman Fellow at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, has been awarded the American Physical Society’s 2026 Mitsuyoshi Tanaka Award in Experimental Particle Physics for her pioneering work in particle detection. Her innovative techniques, which open new pathways for identifying elusive dark matter candidates, are advancing the search for physics beyond the Standard Model.

Supported by a DOE Early Career Award, a Fermilab scientist is building a scalable superconducting cavity array to detect faint signals from mysterious dark photons with unprecedented speed and sensitivity.

A team of researchers from Fermilab, University of Chicago, Stanford University, and New York University
have developed an electronically-tunable quantum detector that significantly speeds up the search for dark photons, a leading candidate for dark matter.

Scientists designed a state-of-the-art detector to electronically tune itself, enabling scientists to search broader frequency ranges for evidence of weak signals produced by dark photons — possible dark matter particles — much faster and more precisely than ever before.

The CMS experiment at CERN is building a new detector that will unravel the chaotic particle collisions at the Large Hadron Collider, helping scientists identify particles based on their speeds.

The SuperCDMS collaboration has reached a critical milestone of cooling to its operating temperature, allowing scientists to begin calibrating the experiment’s detectors to prepare for the first search for dark matter. A team from Fermilab helped calibrate detectors for the world’s most sensitive search yet.

Fermilab has contributed vital components to the SuperCDMS experiment, located deep underground in a nickel mine outside of Sudbury, Canada.

Scientists are continuing a groundbreaking study of superconducting microwire single photon detectors, or SMSPDs. These ultrasensitive devices show great promise for particle physics research of the future.