Results from the LZ Dark Matter Search

The identity of dark matter presents one of the most fundamental mysteries in physics today. An answer to this question will shed light on a wealth of physics beyond the Standard Model, and will have a fundamental impact on our understanding of the universe from the smallest to the largest scales. A global experimental effort has been ongoing for almost forty years to directly detect dark matter in the laboratory, and devices utilizing liquid xenon (LXe) have emerged as the leading technology in this search. LUX-ZEPLIN is the largest and most sensitive LXe dark-matter experiment to ever be constructed, and has been many years in the making. Completing the final construction and commissioning tasks in the depths of the COVID lockdown, LZ turned on at the end of 2021, releasing its first science results in July of 2022. An exciting glimpse of what is yet to come, I will present these first data and what they tell us about dark matter so far.