Most
past searches for dark matter particles have focused on a different candidate particle, known as a weakly interacting massive particle, or WIMP.
The incredibly sensitive LUX dark - matter detector, buried under a mile of rock, has come up empty on its 20 -
month search for dark matter — further narrowing down the possible characteristics of the strange substance.
Physicists
searching for dark matter hope to measure the tiny amount of energy given off when particles in a «halo» of dark matter thought to envelop the Milky Way interact with atoms of ordinary matter on Earth.
Professor Uwe Oberlack of the Institute of Physics at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz is one of the founding members of the XENON
program searching for dark matter.
The lab recently expanded the space, removing 17,000 tons of rock to prepare for the installation of the Large Underground Xenon Detector, which will
search for dark matter particles.
For a number of years, this lab in a cavern has hosted the UK's
search for dark matter, along with super-sensitive radio - isotope testing equipment for environmental and climate studies, for example.
Its Own Opposite While some researchers parse the motions of galaxies in
their search for dark matter, others are hunting for evidence in the form of telltale particles.
To use those data to
search for dark matter, the researchers had to invoke another bit of speculative physics.
The 7,000 - ton Atlas detector at the LHC will observe a billion proton collisions per second in
its search for dark matter.
At Columbia University's Nevis Laboratories in Irvington, New York, Elena Aprile sits in front of a new liquid - xenon - filled detector that is key to
her search for dark matter.
But the meat of this book is
the search for dark matter, and the people and experiments involved.
We follow
the search for dark matter — that mysterious stuff which outweighs the visible stars and galaxies by a factor of about six.
A discovery facilitated by Rice University's contribution to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will impact scientists»
search for dark matter in the universe.
[
The Search for Dark Matter in Images]
But should the hunters fail to bag one of these WIMPs, or weakly interacting massive particles,
the search for dark matter could be thrown into crisis.
On the other, they have ruled out some of the simplest and most cherished WIMP models, raising fresh fears that the long - postulated particles might be a multidecadal detour in
the search for dark matter.
MISPLACED MATTER
A search for dark matter by the XENON100 experiment has found nothing.
These enigmatic, hypothetical particles are the leading suspects in
the search for dark matter, the unseen bits of whatever that are thought to make up the bulk of the matter in the universe.
There are no convincing proposals of how to test this idea, but scientists could be forced to take it seriously if all
the searches for dark matter located within our universe come up empty.
Lisa Grossman reports on
the search for dark matter (2 November, p 11), but there are other theories to explain...
«NASA's Fermi mission expands
its search for dark matter.»
Lead author Dr Richard Massey, in the Centre for Extragalactic Astronomy, at Durham University, said: «
The search for dark matter is frustrating, but that's science.
Thousands of physicists, astrophysicists, and astronomers are
searching for dark matter, mysterious stuff whose gravity seems to hold the galaxies together.
It will track neutrinos from supernova explosions and active galaxies,
search for dark matter, and seek out so - called supersymmetric particles predicted by cutting - edge physics theories.
How will the LHC aid
the search for dark matter?
On the other, they have ruled out some of the simplest and most cherished WIMP models, raising fresh fears that WIMPs might be a multidecadal detour in
the search for dark matter.
And it will trigger more robust predictions for the many experiments worldwide that
search for dark matter particles,» says Miguel Pato, who meanwhile moved to The Oskar Klein Centre for Cosmoparticle Physics at the Stockholm University.
That lack of evidence provided impetus to separate
the search for dark matter from work on supersymmetry, Rosenberg said, so the newest version of the Axion Dark Matter Experiment is drawing substantial interest among researchers.
The most advanced clocks can help physicists to test such fundamental aspects of reality as the time variability of physical constants, to very precisely verify the predictions of the general theory of relativity, and also to
search for dark matter in the Universe.
It's not the result physicists were hoping for, but data from a new experiment may put an end to a contentious subplot in
the search for dark matter, the mysterious stuff whose gravity binds the galaxies.
From saving the rainforest, to developing world - leading vaccines to digging deep in
the search for dark matter, Brazil's skills extend far beyond football
«Since the discovery of the first gravitational lens, the phenomenon has been exploited to map the distribution of mass around galaxies and clusters, and to
search for dark matter, dark energy, compact objects, and extrasolar planets,» physicist Clifford Will notes in a recent paper.
Spiropulu develops experiments to
search for dark matter and other theories that go beyond the Standard Model, which describes how the particles we know of interact.
This will permit to refine our understanding of the structure and evolution of our Galaxy, and it will trigger more robust predictions for the many experiments worldwide that
search for dark matter particles.
David B. Cline, «
The Search for Dark Matter,» Scientific American, Vol.
Since then, scientists have been
searching for dark matter and trying to figure out what exactly it is.
While it's only a small piece of a much bigger enterprise, it's exciting to be able to contribute to
the search for dark matter.»