• Astronomy: Vibrant Dark Matter Controversy
  • Research: a galaxy without dark matter

The Xenon1T experiment of the Gran Sasso National Laboratory , dedicated to the search for dark matter in the heart of the Apennine Mountains, in Italy, has produced some strange observations of what, according to scientists, could be axions, a type of particle elemental whose existence, until now, is only a hypothesis.

Those responsible for the experiment argue that the unexpected results, in which more traces of particles were seen than expected, could be due to axions from the Sun , although they admit that there are other possible explanations for what happened.

The Xenon1T is a cylindrical detector filled with 3.2 tons of xenon, a very heavy noble gas, which is buried one and a half kilometers under the bush, to limit as much as possible any interaction with the most common forms of matter and radiation and thus focusing on the eventual particles of dark matter that it is capable of capturing. But the axions you may have discovered are not the dark matter you were looking for, although it would also be a revolutionary discovery .

A pre-publication of the scientific report , still pending the usual peer review, has reported the surprising results of the Xenon1T experiment, which were also presented in an online seminar on June 17. The data, in which a clear excess of particles is observed with respect to those predicted by the standard model of physics, was obtained throughout a year, between February 2017 and the same month of 2018.

Since then, scientists have racked their brains for explanations compatible with the imprint left by the mysterious particles on the detector. The most relevant would be that they were solar axions, although that was not what they were looking for .

The scientists at Xenon, an international collaboration led by experimental physics Elena Aprile from Columbia University in New York, aim to find the so-called wimps , an acronym for weakly interacting massive particles, although it is also a play on words, because wimp means weakling .

Dark Matter Candidates

The wimps are one of the main candidates to shape the elusive dark matter, of which around 85% of the matter of the universe is made and that is only known for its indirect effects, such as the gravitational force it exerts on galaxies. , without having been detected until now or knowing for sure what it is made of. If anything, the energy traces the Xenon1T found are incompatible with wimps .

Axions themselves are, instead, a possible explanation for the excess of events detected. They are also particles whose reality is predicted by some models, but which have never been detected. If confirmed its existence, an important question in the standard model of physics could be solved, the so-called strong CP problem.

Apart from the standard model, axions have also been postulated as one of the particles that dark matter could be made of . But Aprile and his collaborators do not say that they have found dark matter in the form of axions, but that, looking for the first, they have come across the second, a finding that, if confirmed, would also be important.

There are other, less conspicuous, possible explanations for the 53 unanticipated events the experiment detected. The first, and more prosaic, would be that it was a background noise generated in the detector itself and not taken into account until now. The result would also be compatible with the presence of neutrinos , particles that abound in the universe and constantly pass through our bodies. Although, in this case, they would have behaved differently than previously known.

Coming from our star

The most interesting explanation, however, would be "the existence of a new particle," according to the press release published by Xenon. "In fact, the observed excess has an energy spectrum similar to that expected by axions produced on the Sun." Our star, in effect, has been postulated as one of the possible sources of these hypothetical particles.

"Although these solar axions are not candidates for dark matter , their detection would mark the first observation of a well-argued, but never observed, new class of particles, with a great impact on our understanding of fundamental physics, but also of astrophysical phenomena ", they explain from the international project.

The axions that, always hypothetically, could form dark matter, would have arisen in a much younger universe, so they would not be the ones that, if confirmed, would now be emitting our star.

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