Institutional development · Research, innovation and assessment · Canada
Queen's profiles 60-researcher PICO dark matter hunt 2km under Sudbury at SNOLAB
Queen's University has described the PICO dark matter experiment, run by 60 researchers from 17 institutions in seven countries at the SNOLAB underground laboratory in Sudbury, Canada.
Why it matters: Students and postdocs on the PICO team can take part in detector design, construction, operation and data analysis, according to Queen's University.
Queen's University reported that the PICO experiment is housed at SNOLAB, a deep underground laboratory in Sudbury located 2km below the surface.
According to the university, PICO began in 2013 when the Canadian PICASSO experiment, led by Viktor Zacek at the University of Montreal, merged with the US-led COUPP experiment.
The collaboration now numbers 60 researchers from 17 institutions in seven countries, which the university called modest compared with physics teams of hundreds to a thousand.
Queen's postdoctoral researcher Derek Cranshaw said that finding dark matter would be a field-changing discovery.
Editor’s view
Scott James, Research and Innovation Editor
Students and postdocs in the 60-member PICO collaboration can, according to Queen's University, be involved in every stage of the experiment, from building the detector to analysing its data.
