UNDERGROUND LABORATORIES AND THEIR PHYSICS REACH
Abstract
Underground laboratories, shielded by the Earth's crust from the particles that rain down on the surface in the form of cosmic rays, provide the low radioactive background environment necessary to host key experiments in the field of particle and astroparticle physics, nuclear astrophysics and other disciplines that can profit of their characteristics and of their infrastructures. The cosmic silence condition existing in these laboratories allows the search for extremely rare phenomena and the exploration of the highest energy scales that cannot be reached with accelerators. Major fundamental challenges are within the scope of these laboratories, notably, understanding the properties of neutrinos and dark matter, and exploring the unification of the fundamental forces of nature. I will review the physics reach and briefly describe the main underground facilities that are presently in operation around the world.
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