Newswise — Menlo Park, Calif. — Researchers from the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory will take part in a discussion of the global hunt for dark matter at this year’s AAAS Annual Meeting, to be held Feb. 11-15 in Washington, D.C.

Where Did Most of the Universe Go? Searching for Dark MatterThe nature of dark matter remains one of the biggest mysteries of modern physics and astronomy. Researchers believe it is made of fundamental particles, and they can measure its effects on the movements of galaxies and other celestial objects. But they don’t yet know exactly what it is; the elusive substance defies explanation as well as detection.

Tom Abel, director of the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology at SLAC and Stanford University, will moderate a conversation among an international panel of scientists about efforts to learn more about dark matter, what it is, how it interacts with ordinary matter, how to find it and why it even exists.

As part of that panel, JoAnne Hewett, head of SLAC’s Elementary Particle Physics division, will be one of the speakers. Her talk, “Putting It All Together: The Characterization of Dark Matter in the Next Decade,” will provide an overview of dark matter searches at the Large Hadron Collider and other particle accelerators.

The complete list of speakers and contributors is available online: https://aaas.confex.com/aaas/2016/webprogram/Session11718.html.

When: Friday, Feb. 12, 2016, 1-2:30 p.m.Where: Marriott Wardman Park – Wilson A, Washington, D.C.

SLAC is a multi-program laboratory exploring frontier questions in photon science, astrophysics, particle physics and accelerator research. Located in Menlo Park, California, SLAC is operated by Stanford University for the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science. To learn more, please visit www.slac.stanford.edu.

SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy. The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit science.energy.gov.