The challenge with detecting dark matter is that the signal will probably be incredibly small – perhaps only a couple of particles per day. So it would be really easy to be fooled by some other signal, such as lead-210, which is radioactive. Dr Anton Wallner is testing the crystals that will be used...

As a young girl in Bangladesh, Victoria Uttaree Bashu was obsessed with Einstein. Like her inspiration, she is already pushing back the frontiers of physics, three months into her PhD in the Nuclear Physics and Accelerator Applications Department. “Sometimes I see something on screen, and it is the first...

Episode 4 of Megavolts finds us in the HIAF experimental hall looking for dark matter with Dr Lindsey Bignell.   Actually, it’s a practice run, using neutrons instead: dark matter detections are likely to be so rare that we need to have the detectors well and truly tested before we begin live...

What do asteroid strikes, ancient glaciers and landslides have in common? They can all be studied at the Heavy ion Accelerator Facility (HIAF) using Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS). In this episode of MegaVolts, UNSW Professor Tim Barrows – an earth scientist – shares his work using...