How Liquid Xenon Time Projection Chambers Work

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What if 85% of the universe is invisible—and the one experiment claiming to have found it is wrong?

For nearly three decades, Italian physicists have claimed their DAMA/LIBRA experiment detected the elusive particles that make up dark matter—the mysterious substance holding galaxies together. Yet no one else has ever confirmed it.

Join Brian Keating, UCSD cosmologist and host of The INTO THE IMPOSSIBLE Podcast, as he visits Kaixuan Ni and his team—scientists building the world’s most sensitive detectors deep underground—to uncover:

• ⚛️ How detectors using liquid xenon can “fingerprint” single atomic collisions.

• 💡 Why dark matter’s “heartbeat” signal divided physicists for 30 years.

• ☢️ How dark-matter detectors are now being repurposed to detect nuclear weapons and monitor reactors remotely.

• 🌞 The shocking discovery of solar neutrinos and ultra-rare nuclear decays—phenomena rarer than the age of the universe itself.

This is the invisible architecture of reality—where cosmology meets particle physics, and theory meets obsession.

📍 Filmed at UC San Diego’s Mayer Hall and Harold Urey Hall — home to experiments that may finally prove what 85% of the cosmos is made of.

👇 Watch till the end to see how a failed dark-matter search could save the world from nuclear war.

Key Takeaways:

00:00 "Dark Matter Detection Debate"

04:51 "Physics, Peace, and Deuterium"

08:20 "Annual Modulation from Dark Matter"

10:05 Particle Physics' Atomic Fingerprinting Revolution

16:03 "Data Processing for Dark Matter"

18:56 "Boron-8 Neutrinos Observed"

22:43 "Exploring Electron Recall Signal Excess"

24:22 "Xenon Experiment Resolves Signal Mystery"

30:11 S1, S2 Signal Discrimination

33:11 "Radon Control for Clean Detection"

34:26 "From Cosmic Mysteries to Peace"

38:10 Dark Matter: Undetected Mystery

🎥 Directed & Narrated by: Brian Keating

🔬 Featuring: Prof. Kaixuan Ni, Prof. Liang Yang, Zihao Shi (Columbia)

📍 Location: UC San Diego

🎙️ From The Professor Keating Experiments series

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