- 4134 - DARK MATTER - exists? Our solar system is in a spiral arm of the Milky Way that is spinning, the Earth is orbiting the sun and the Earth rotates on its axis. This astronomical motion means the Earth is passing through the sea of dark matter particles, but from our perspective, that looks like dark matter particles are constantly bombarding the Earth and our detectors.
-------------- 4134 - DARK MATTER - exists?
- The quest to find dark matter is a curious
one. It is, quite literally, a shot in the dark. Even though scientists are
certain that dark matter exists, as all our universe's normal matter simply
can't account for the way galaxies are kind of held together, they don't know
what it is. They also don't really know where it is.
-
- Dark matter and dark energy of our universe
accounts for 95% of our universe, Dark
energy is the unseen force accelerating space's expansion.
-
- But how does one analyze something without
truly knowing what to analyze?
Researchers who are dedicated to the hunt recently did by sifting
through data captured with a detector buried deep within a mine in Minnesota.
While they did not find evidence of dark matter, they say they've created one
of the tightest-ever limits for detecting this phenomenon.
-
- A null result can be as impactful as a
positive result. Scientists managed to
rule out a new slice of dark matter parameter space. SuperCDMS's experimental detector concluded
that we can now rule out dark matter particles down to about about a fifth of a
proton's mass.
-
- The galaxy cluster 1E 0657-56, the
"bullet cluster." was formed after the collision of two large
clusters of galaxies, the most energetic event known in the universe since the
Big Bang. Most of the matter in the clusters is clearly separate from the
normal matter , giving direct evidence that nearly all of the matter in the
clusters is “dark matter”.
-
- To capture proof of these dark matter
particles, the SuperCDMS collaboration works with an experiment that basically
harnesses the power of detectors that can identify if and when a dark matter
particle collides with the atomic nuclei of materials built into the detectors
themselves, either germanium or silicon.
-
- SuperCDMS can pick out whether those dark
matter particles partake in what are known as "elastic collisions”. If they do, what would happen is any energy a
dark matter particle loses upon its crash would get transferred to the motion
of the impacted atomic nucleus. In turn, the two bits would recoil. It'd be like two billiard balls smashing
into one another only to slightly bounce backward on the table.
-
- What if SuperCDMS had been capturing some
other type of collision no one's been looking for all this time? Particularly,
z”inelastic” collisions. There are two
ways a potential dark-matter-inelastic collision may work. The first, has to do
with something called “Bremsstrahlung radiation”.
-
- In the detector, if this type of inelastic
collision happened, the dark matter particle would transfer some of its energy
to a light particle, or photon, rather than just recoiling like in the billiard
ball example.
-
- Inelastic collision may occur through
something called the “Midgal effect”. If this version happened, the dark matter
particle slamming into the nucleus would cause the nucleus itself to get
knocked out of position, messing up its electron cloud distribution. Upon
getting back into its original spot, some of those jostled electrons would get
ejected.
-
- There are roughly 1 billion dark matter
particles passing through you every second, but they interact so rarely that
you can't tell. We're looking for a 1 in
a billion billion billion billion chance of interaction. Their conclusion was about dark matter
particles' likely lower mass limits.
-
- One of those things ripe for interaction is
our planet's atmosphere. If a dark
matter particle did interact with our atmosphere, this planetary shield would
take away some of the particle's energy by the time we captured its
signals. What do you think we will find?
-
-
August 30, 2023 DARK MATTER
- exists? 4134
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