xenon

The XENON dark matter research project operated at the Italian Gran Sasso laboratory is a deep underground research facility featuring increasingly ambitious experiments aiming to finally detect long sought after dark matter particles. These particles in the form of Weakly interacting massive particles  (WIMPs) are believed to be found by looking for rare interactions via nuclear recoils in a liquid xenon target chamber. The current detector consists of a dual phase Time projection chamber (TPC).

Xenon is a chemical element with symbol Xe and atomic number 54. It is a colorless, dense, odorless noble gas, that occurs in the Earth's atmosphere in trace amounts. Although generally unreactive, xenon can undergo a few chemical reactions such as the formation of xenon hexafluoroplatinate, the first noble gas compound to be synthesized.