XENON collaboration

The XENON collaboration is an international scientific consortium comprising approximately 165 scientists from around 30 institutions worldwide. The group focuses on the direct detection of dark matter by designing, building, and operating liquid xenon time projection chambers located deep underground at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso in Italy.

The collaboration's experimental program has evolved through several generations, including XENON10, XENON100, and XENON1T. Its latest detector, XENONnT, began operation in 2021 with roughly 8 tonnes of liquid xenon, allowing for some of the most stringent constraints on dark matter particle interactions to date.

Beyond dark matter, the collaboration utilizes its detectors to search for rare processes such as axions and neutrinoless double beta decay. Partner institutions are distributed across Europe and the United States, with the University of Zurich playing a historic leadership role in the program's development.