The goal of LHC experiments isn't to
produce WIMPs directly, but to produce other particles that might decay into dark matter.
At these depths there are even fewer cosmic rays capable of
producing WIMP - mimicking neutrons.
Not exact matches
In such «direct» detection experiments, a
WIMP collision would cause these charged particles to recoil,
producing light that we can observe.
Treat yourself True, we have
produced a nation of risk averse, its big mummy's fault,
wimps unable to «get it in proportion».
Some of those
WIMPs would then disappear when two of them collided and annihilated each other to
produce two ordinary particles.
Straightforward extrapolation of the Standard Model to that primordial epoch suggests that
WIMPs should have been
produced in enormous numbers in the dense, hot plasma that filled the universe immediately after the big bang.
Most of the
WIMPs would collide with and annihilate one another at relativistic speeds,
producing ordinary particles as a result.
But theory says that
WIMPs should also brush shoulders with normal atoms occasionally,
producing signals we can detect.
There are a few dark - matter candidates besides
WIMPs, but all of them have to be similarly slow - moving to
produce the kind of clumpy distribution that astronomers infer from dark matter's gravitational pull.
If a passing
WIMP bumps directly into a germanium atom, the nucleus should vibrate,
producing a tiny amount of heat.
The leading candidate is a
WIMP, or weakly - interacting massive particle, that was
produced in the big bang and has been clumping up and seeding structures such as galaxies ever since.
In some versions, colliding
WIMPs either mutually annihilate or
produce an intermediate, quickly decaying particle.
In a paper published in Physical Review D on March 22, Caputo and her colleagues modeled the dark matter content of the SMC, showing it possessed enough to
produce detectable signals for two
WIMP types.
In many models, a
WIMP is its own anti-particle, meaning that when two dark matter particles meet, they annihilate to
produce more - familiar particles, including gamma rays detectable by Earth - and space - based telescopes.
It is thought that these
WIMPs annihilate when they meet,
producing a shower of radiation, including gamma rays.
To explain the current abundance of dark matter in the universe (as inferred from galactic observations and other data), the rate of annihilation, which governs how often
WIMPs were
produced in the early universe as well as how often they annihilate now, must fall within a narrow range.
Early on, two teams had spied a telltale anomaly in the subatomic wreckage: an excess of energy from proton collisions that hinted at new physics perhaps
produced by
WIMPs (or, to be fair, many additional exotic possibilities).
For example, in 2008 Jonathan Feng and Jason Kumar, both then at the University of California, Irvine, showed how a phenomenon known as supersymmetry could
produce a hypothetical class of particles much lighter and more weakly interacting than
WIMPs.
The experiment monitors germanium detectors, cooled to a fraction of a degree above absolute zero, for subtle vibration and ionization effects that would be
produced by
WIMPs colliding with germanium nuclei.
In addition to
producing gravity,
WIMPs would interact with other matter and themselves only through the weak nuclear force.
If a
WIMP strikes a xenon nucleus with the LUX detector, the recoiling nucleus should
produce telltale flashes of light.
And because the disc rotates at about the same speed as the Milky Way,
WIMPs might collect in the sun more often than you would expect, knocking into solar protons to
produce neutrinos.
Theorists have envisioned a wide range of
WIMP types, some of which may either mutually annihilate or
produce an intermediate, quickly decaying particle when they collide.
One way to find them is to look for gamma rays, which should be
produced when
WIMPs collide and disintegrate.
GAPS would search for antideuterons, which are
produced in the annihilation of neutralinos, a type of
WIMP predicted by supersymmetric theories.
Being a breeder that is doing all they can to
produce quality puppies is a boatload of work — «breeding is not for
wimps».