The MANOIR group specialises in the detection of particles that interact extremely little with matter. A cryogenic laboratory dedicated to IP2I allows the study and development of associated cryogenic detectors, sensitive to temperature rises of less than one millionth of a Kelvin. These detectors, called bolometers, are crystals installed in cryostats at very low temperatures, only 0.01 degrees above absolute zero!

Our bolometers should make it possible to discover dark matter particles, predicted in large quantities in our galaxy by Cosmology, but never detected before, forming a link between infinitely large and infinitely small! The EDELWEISS experiment, to which we are making a major contribution, is dedicated to the search for low-mass dark matter particles.

Our group is also among the leaders of the Ricochet experiment, which tackles the difficult measurement of coherent elastic scattering between reactor neutrinos and the nuclei of the crystal lattice of bolometers. This process, predicted in 1974, was not observed until 2017. The original detectors we propose will allow a very precise measurement of this scattering, and perhaps open a door to new physics!

With our bolometers, we are also trying to answer a question that has haunted physicists since the discovery of the neutrino: is it its own antiparticle (Majorana neutrino)? In this case, a particular and very rare radioactive decay should take place; the CUPID experiment, in which we are participating, tries to detect this reaction.