News – DarkWave

Best wishes!

Yuliya Hoika — Thu, 25 Dec 2025 13:11:23 +0000

As the year draws to a close, we at Astrocent want to take a moment to thank our community for being part of our journey.

May this holiday season bring you joy, peace, and moments of wonder.

Just as the stars guide us through the night sky, may hope and kindness guide us into the New Year.

We look forward to continuing to explore the universe together in 2026!

From all of us at Astrocent — Wishing you Merry Christmas and a joyful start to 2026!

Astrocent at APPEC Tech Forum Vacuum & Cryogenics

Yuliya Hoika — Sun, 14 Dec 2025 13:06:00 +0000

From 24–26 November 2025, Astrocent participated in the IUVSTA Workshop 109 / APPEC Technology Forum in Maastricht, NL — a unique event bringing together researchers and industry to address cutting‑edge challenges in vacuum and cryogenics technologies for astroparticle physics.

The forum gathered European physicists, project scientists, companies, and funding agencies to discuss the technological needs of next‑generation experiments in dark matter detection, neutrino physics, and gravitational wave research.

Prof. Masayuki Wada presented a poster on the liquid argon‑based PET scanner, which applies ultra‑high vacuum and cryogenic technologies.

This was an opportunity to showcase our development, promote collaboration, and establish valuable contacts with providers across Europe.

The workshop also featured plenary talks from major European projects, discussions on industry–academia synergies, and a visit to ET‑Pathfinder, the R&D facility for technologies of the future Einstein Telescope.

Astrocent’s engagement highlights our commitment to advancing detector technologies and strengthening cooperation between science and industry at the European level.

Communicating the Einstein Telescope

Yuliya Hoika — Fri, 28 Nov 2025 13:00:00 +0000

Gravitational-wave research was one of DarkWave’s main domains. Building on this expertise, we continue our work in this field today through our engagement in the Einstein Telescope project, supporting Europe’s next-generation gravitational-wave observatory.

The 4th Einstein Telescope Annual Meeting

In mid-November, Astrocent’s Communication Specialist, Yuliya Hoika, participated in the 4th Einstein Telescope Annual Meeting in Opatija, Croatia (11–14 November). As a member of the Einstein Telescope Organisation (ETO) Communication Office, Yuliya contributed to the plenary programme with a talk offering an overview of communication and citizen-engagement activities across Europe – both at the official candidate sites (Sardinia, Lusatia, and the Euregio Meuse-Rhine region) and at the EU-wide level. Her contribution highlighted the growing importance of coordinated communication in supporting ET’s progress towards a final site decision.

Learning from the ET Roadshow in Hasselt

On 19 November, Yuliya Hoika and Magda Jakubiak (a Communication Specialist who joined the Astrocent team in September 2025) visited Hasselt University, host of the ET Roadshow. The Roadshow is a travelling exhibition dedicated to the Einstein Telescope and the EMR candidate region, designed to engage the public through interactive content and storytelling. The visit provided an opportunity to exchange experience with the Roadshow team, explore hands-on exhibition formats, and gather inspiration for future outreach activities connected to ET and our institute.

Einstein Telescope is not just a scientific instrument – it is a long-term European project shaped by people, places, and shared ambition. Communication helps build that shared vision: it creates trust, invites participation, and turns complex research infrastructure into something citizens can understand, support, and feel proud of.

At Astrocent, we believe strong communication is part of building strong science. We are proud to contribute to ET by helping bring its story to Europe – clearly, creatively, and together with our partners.

Astrocent at the DarkSide-20k Fall Collaboration Meeting

Yuliya Hoika — Mon, 24 Nov 2025 17:04:05 +0000

From 17–21 November 2025, Astrocent participated in the DarkSide-20k Fall Collaboration Meeting hosted by the Gran Sasso Science Institute (GSSI) in L’Aquila, Italy. The event brought together researchers working on one of today’s most ambitious dark matter search experiments.

Astrocent is a proud member of the DarkSide-20k collaboration, and our team actively contributed to the meeting programme. Astrocent team members took part in the session on “vPDU production summary, data and yield from testing QA/QC”. The “Review Office report” was presented by Prof. Marcin Kuzniak, Astrocent group leader, supporting the collaboration’s ongoing work on detector components and quality assurance.

Celebrating Dark Matter Day 2025

Yuliya Hoika — Fri, 07 Nov 2025 17:04:00 +0000

On November 4, we joined the global celebration of Dark Matter Day 2025 with a public talk by Dr Sebastian Trojanowski, theoretical physicist at Astrocent and the National Centre for Nuclear Research (NCNR).

The lecture took the audience on a journey through one of the biggest mysteries in modern science — the nature of dark matter. It showed how recent astronomical discoveries are changing our view of the Universe and revealed how much of it still remains invisible and unknown. The talk combined clear explanations with insights from cutting-edge experiments and cosmological research. The audience was deeply engaged, asking plenty of questions and creating a lively, friendly atmosphere.

At Astrocent, we believe in sharing knowledge and inspiring curiosity — opening science to everyone, not just researchers. This event was part of that mission and fits perfectly within our Teaming for Excellence project, which builds bridges between science and society.

Enjoy the photo gallery, and stay tuned for more of our public events and activities!

Our postdoc wins the Young Scientist Award of the Physical Society of Japan

Yuliya Hoika — Fri, 31 Oct 2025 17:00:15 +0000

We are proud to share that our former postdoctoral researcher Dr Masato Kimura (supervised by Prof. Masayuki Wada) has received the 20th Young Encouragement Prize of the Physical Society of Japan for his academic dissertation “Search for dark matter annual modulation with DarkSide-50”. The award-winning research was conducted at Astrocent,

This prestigious award recognises promising young physicists in Japan, encouraging them to continue advancing the frontiers of physics. It adds to Dr Kimura’s growing list of accomplishments, which includes his appointment as Assistant Professor at the University of Tokyo.

His achievement demonstrates that Astrocent postdocs are internationally competitive and make significant contributions to global science.

Astrocent researchers at LIDINE 2025 in China

Yuliya Hoika — Tue, 28 Oct 2025 17:08:20 +0000

Astrocent researchers participated in the 9th International Workshop on Light Detection in Noble Elements (LIDINE 2025), held from 21 to 24 October 2025 at the Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (IHEP, CAS), and the Hong Kong Institute of Science & Innovation, Chinese Academy of Sciences (HKISI, CAS).

The LIDINE conference series serves as an international forum for discussion among members of the particle and nuclear physics communities, focusing on detector technologies based on noble elements and their wide-ranging applications — from dark matter and neutrino physics to medical imaging and neutron EDM studies.

Astrocent ’s contributions to this year’s edition included two oral presentations and one poster:

Prof. Masayuki Wada – Update on 3Dpi: PET Scanner with Xenon-doped Liquid Argon and SiPM
Diego Rodas Rodríguez – Wavelength-shifting optical amplification structures for future Dark Matter searches
Poster: Production of GEM-like structures for cryogenic applications using laser-cutting techniques by Diego Rodas Rodríguez, André Cortez, and Marcin Kuźniak

Astrocent is looking for the Scientific and Research Projects Coordinator

Yuliya Hoika — Tue, 21 Oct 2025 08:37:00 +0000

Application deadline: 20 November 2025

Job type: employment contract (full time)

Monthly gross salary before taxes: 9,500 – 12,000 PLN gross / month

More information about the position can be found here.

Apply: Pracuj.pl

Astrocent hosted the 6th DRD1 Collaboration Meeting 2025

Yuliya Hoika — Tue, 14 Oct 2025 16:53:00 +0000

Between October 6 and 10, Astrocent became a meeting point for the 6th edition of the CERN-DRD1 Collaboration Meeting. On Monday, the collaboration was welcomed by Prof. Rafał Moderski, Director of Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center (CAMK), and Prof. Leszek Roszkowski, Director of Astrocent. Later on, it was a week full of engagements! Starting from everyday presentation sessions, a schedule filled with social activities, and a cherry on top – a guided tour of the Heavy Ion Laboratory at the University of Warsaw.

“This is the first official DRD1 Collaboration event outside of CERN,” says Maxim Titov, CERN-DRD1 Collaboration Spokesperson. “It emphasized the importance of building community bridges, understanding each other’s challenges, and engaging in shared activities between the particle & nuclear physics and astroparticle physics communities.” We couldn’t agree more. Apart from the fruitful discussions, such meetings are essential for expanding networks and strengthening partnerships, while also providing a valuable stage for the promotion of science and our activities at Astrocent.

We would like to thank CERN for entrusting us with delivering an enjoyable experience for our guests. We certainly look forward to more opportunities like this in the future.

DEAP-3600 collaboration meeting in Ottawa

Yuliya Hoika — Wed, 13 Aug 2025 16:52:00 +0000

10–13 August — The DEAP-3600 collaboration convened at Carleton University for its twice-yearly meeting, held in hybrid format, to review recent results, define objectives, and discuss future prospects in the search for dark matter.

DEAP3600 is one of the world’s most sensitive experiments for Weakly Interacting Massive Particle (WIMP) dark matter detection. Its competitive sensitivity is achieved through the careful design of the detector located 2 km underground at SNOLAB in Canada.

ASTROCENT is proud to be part of this international effort. Our team contributed to the meeting with:

Light/charge collection and detection R&D at Astrocent — Prof. Marcin Kuzniak
Database management — Dr Michał Olszewski
Outreach activities — Yuliya Hoika

Such in-person meetings remain essential for fostering effective collaboration, facilitating the exchange of expertise, and advancing our collective mission to explore the nature of dark matter.