Supervisors: Dr. Sean Paling (RAL/PPD/Boulby) & Prof. Alexander Murphy (University of Edinburgh) 

The nature of dark matter is one of the biggest mysteries in science. UK scientists, conducting work at Boulby and elsewhere, pioneered much of the technology and many of the techniques that now underpin the leading direct detection experiments. Today, we have leading roles in LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ), the world's most sensitive instrument. Remarkably, its successor, XLZD, an instrument that will be over an order of magnitude more sensitive still, may well itself be sited at Boulby, which would make it the most significant particle physics experiment to be located in the UK for generations. 

In this PhD project, the candidate will develop and lead significant improvements to XLZD, advancing its science capability through better understanding and management of the radioactive backgrounds inherent in the detector – areas that Boulby and Edinburgh have been jointly cooperating on for years. Underpinning this work is our long-term partnership in the development and use of a suite of ultra-sensitive deep-underground radioassay techniques and devices, particularly ICP-MS.

These improvements directly underpin novel candidate dark matter searches, specifically in the areas that Edinburgh has led for LZ in so-called 'low energy electron recoils' where a broader range of potential physics beyond the standard model exists. These include dark matter candidates such as axion-like particles, mirror dark matter or hidden photons, as well as a range of other novel physics candidates such as solar axions or neutrinos exhibiting anomalous magnetic moments.  Such searches are limited by exactly the backgrounds that our radioassay work tackles, and progress in one area has immediate impact in the other, directly benefitting and enabling the PhD student to conduct uniquely focussed sensitivity studies for XLZD, as well as new and advanced searches for low energy electron recoils in LZ, where late phase data might yet deliver a discovery!​

 For more details, contact Dr. Sean Paling (sean.paling@stfc.ac.uk) or Prof. Alexander Murphy (a.s.murphy@ed.ac.uk).