Dark Matter Hunt Detects Unexplained Signal

Dark Matter Hunt Detects Unexplained Signal

An experiment that’s been searching for signs of dark matter managed to detect an unexplained signal. Experts who are working on the Xenon1T experiment detected more activity within their detector than they expected.

Such excess of events could be pointing out the existence of hypothesized particles called axions – some of these are candidates for dark matter.

Dark matter comprises 85% of matter in the cosmos, but its nature is unknown at the moment. But whatever this is, it doesn’t reflect or emit detectable light. 

According to the original article, “There are three potential explanations for the new signal from the Xenon1T experiment. Two require new physics to explain, while one of them is consistent with the existence of solar axion particles.”

It’s been revealed that the findings have been published on the Arxiv pre-print server.

It’s also important to mention the fact that so far, experts have only observed indirect evidence of dark matter.

“A definitive, direct detection of dark matter particles has yet to be made,” according to the notes.

WIMP – Weakly Interacting Massive Particle

There are various theories to account for what the particle might be like and the one that experts seem to reportedly prefer is the WIMP  – Weakly Interacting Massive Particle.

Experts who are working on the Xenon series of experiments spent more than 10 years hunting for signs of these WIMPs. On the other hand, unfortunately, the search has not been a successful one. 

Xenon1T, which is the most recent iteration, was also sensitive to other candidate particles.

We recommend that you check out the original article in order to learn all the available details. 

Lots of researches that searches for dark matter has hunted for any signals of dark matter particles crashing into atomic nuclei through a process dubbed the scattering. That process can also produce small flashes of light and other waves in those interactions. It wasn’t until now that physicists finally found something and you can check out more about this in our previous article

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