Akerib is a leader of the LZ (LUX-ZEPLIN) dark matter experiment, a dual-phase liquid-xenon time-projection chamber that uses single-photon and single-electron-sensitive detection to search for weakly interacting massive particles.
Araujo is a long-standing leader of the LZ (LUX-ZEPLIN) liquid-xenon dark matter experiment at SURF, working on detector design, calibration and background rejection for direct-detection WIMP searches, and previously ZEPLIN. His group also contributes to future noble-liquid detector R&D.
Fruth is an experimentalist on LZ, the world-leading liquid-xenon dark matter experiment, and works on the detector-physics end: electron and single-photon backgrounds, calibration, and the characterisation of the anomalous low-energy events that currently limit sensitivity at the bottom of the energy spectrum. The programme is a pure exercise in pushing a detector's noise floor down until it is limited by irreducible physics (the neutrino fog). Positioned against the established body of NV-ensemble quantum sensing work — DEER, nanoscale NMR and T1 relaxometry protocols operating at pT/sqrt(Hz) field sensitivity — dark matter detection and NV-ensemble magnetometry are the same problem in different clothing — an exquisitely quiet detector, a signal below the background, and a systematics budget that determines everything — and the quantum-sensing community is increasingly supplying the readout technology (quantum-limited amplifiers, single-photon counters) that these experiments now need. Early-career PI.
McKinsey develops ultra-low-background noble-liquid (xenon and argon) time-projection chambers for direct dark matter detection, including leadership roles on LZ, and works on quantum-sensor readout of scintillation and ionization signals to push detection thresholds toward single-quantum sensitivity.
Shutt co-founded the CDMS/SuperCDMS cryogenic solid-state dark-matter detector program and is a leader of the LZ liquid-xenon experiment, developing ultra-sensitive detectors for direct dark-matter detection at the single-quantum level.
Sumner is a founding figure of the UK dark-matter direct-detection programme (ZEPLIN series, now LZ), working on liquid-xenon TPC design, radiopurity and background control for rare-event searches.