| Abstract : | Dark matter is still one of the greatest mysteries of the Universe. The attributes and the detection methods of dark matter particles, which make up about 86% of the mass of our Universe, are still elusive. LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) is a direct detection dark matter experiment located at the 4850 ft. level of the Sanford Underground Research Facility in Lead, South Dakota. The LZ experiment employs a dual-phase xenon time projection chamber (TPC), in combination with a novel active neutron veto to detect Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs), one of the propitious dark matter candidates. For a 1000 live day run, the projected spin-independent cross-section sensitivity of LZ is 1.4 × 10^{−48} cm^2 for a 40 GeV/c^2 mass WIMP. Besides the conventional WIMP searches, LZ will also explore the rare decays of xenon isotopes and neutrino physics. With LZ science results expected in 2022, this presentation will provide an overview of the detector design and the current status of the LZ experiment. |
