Speaker
Description
An update of facilities and science in the UK's deep underground science facility. For more than three decades astro-particle physicists have been operating experiments to search for Dark Matter 1100m below ground in a purpose-built low-background facility at Boulby mine in the North East of England. Dark Matter studies continue at Boulby. The facility currently supports various smaller Dark Matter R&D studies and operates the BUGS facility - a growing suite of high sensitivity Germanium detectors and surface alpha measurement systems needed to undertake ever-more sensitive material screening measurements for rare-event studies. In the meantime the range of science projects exploiting the special properties of deep underground environment at Boulby has grown, with projects current and/or planned in the areas of astroparticle and low background science, Earth and environmental science, biology/astrobiology and planetary exploration technology development. For the future Boulby is planning to expand to host future major rare-event and wider multidisciplinary science studies. This talk will give an overview of the Boulby Underground Laboratory, the science currently supported and plans for science at Boulby in the future.