Falling Walls Falling Walls Science Summit 2023

Breaking the Wall of Dark Matter

Laura Baudis

Physical Sciences

While we know from astrophysical observations that dark matter exists, its nature remains a mystery and its detection in the laboratory would be a major breakthrough. While the discovery of dark matter is still outstanding, in 2019 the experiment observed the decay of Xenon-124 atoms for the first time, with a half-life that is about one trillion times longer than the age of the universe. This makes the observed radioactive decay the rarest process ever measured directly.

Tags: Space & the Universe

Laura Baudis

University of Zurich

Laura Baudis’ research interests lie at the intersection of particle physics, astrophysics and cosmology. She builds detectors to discover and ultimately study dark matter particles and to reveal fundamental properties of neutrinos. Baudis received her PhD from the University of Heidelberg, was a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford, and an assistant professor at the University of Florida. In 2006, she was awarded the Lichtenberg Professorship for Astroparticle Physics at RWTH Aachen, and in 2007 she moved to the University of Zurich, where she is a full professor of experimental physics.

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