“I feel happy and honored - to have been awarded the prize, of course, but especially that some colleagues took the initiative to nominate me. It is fantastic that the research we want to conduct with LDMX is highlighted in this way,” says Ruth Pöttgen.
Dark matter, which is believed to make up the majority of matter in the Universe, is still a mystery to scientists. Despite decades of experiments, no concrete evidence of dark particles has been found, and one possible explanation is that these particles may have a much lower mass than previously thought.
In an ongoing project, researchers, including Ruth Pöttgen and several colleagues at Lund University, are building a new particle detector at the SLAC laboratory in California. This detector will make it possible to explore dark matter in a mass range that has not been investigated before. The project, LDMX, aims to detect interactions between dark matter and ordinary matter using advanced detectors and a particle accelerator. The experiment plays an important role in understanding the fundamental building blocks of the universe.
Ruth Pöttgen's profile in Lund University's research portal.