Café & Kosmos 11 October 2011

Although it is invisible, and has so far never been directly detected, dark matter dominates the Universe. Without this mysterious substance the motion of stars around the centres of their galaxies cannot be explained and, even more importantly, some specialists consider that none of the structures we observe in the Universe could have formed without dark matter. Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) are among the best candidates to explain what dark matter may be made of.

Scientists are currently conducting several experiments using different methods to try to uncover the nature of dark matter particles. Dr. Jean-Côme Lanfranchi, from the Excellence Cluster Universe (TUM) will present one of these experiments, CRESST (Cryogenic Rare Event Search with Superconducting Thermometers), to the participants at the next Café & Kosmos, on 11 October 2001.

CRESST, which is located in an underground laboratory 1.3 km under the Gran Sasso mountain range in Italy, has recently recorded signals that stirred lively discussions in the research community. Could it possibly have observed the long-sought WIMPs?

Please note that the Café & Kosmos events take place in German.

What: Dark matter — an underground search for mystery particles
When: Tuesday, 11 October 2011, 19:00 until approximately 20:30
Where: Vereinsheim, Occamstr. 8, 80802 München, near Münchener Freiheit

• Café & Kosmos home page

• Café & Kosmos page at ESO

• Vereinsheim, web page of the venue

Olivier Hainaut
ESO
Karl Schwarzschildstr. 2
85748 Garching bei München
Tel: +49 89 3200 6752
Email: ohainaut@eso.org

Barbara Wankerl
Excellence Cluster Universe
Boltzmannstr. 2
85748 Garching bei München
Tel: +49 89 35831 7105
Email: barbara.wankerl@universe-cluster.de