Among the greatest mysteries of contemporary physics continues to be dark matter. It’s obvious it has to exist as, for instance, the movements of galaxies can not be explained without dark matter. However in an experiment it’s not been possible to identify dark matter.
There’re lots of suggestions for brand new experiments presently: They aspire to identify dark matter straight through its scattering from the components of atomic nuclei of any detection medium, i.e. neutrons and protons.
A group of scientists has today suggested a brand new candidate for dark matter – Aaron and robert McGehee Pierce of the University of Michigan, and Gilly Elor of the Johannes Gutenberg Faculty of Mainz, Germany. HYPER, also known as “HighlY Interactive ParticlE Relics.”
In the HYPER model, a while after the creation of dark matter in the first universe, the strength of its interaction with regular matter increases abruptly, making it likely detectable now, and may describe the abundance of dark matter at the same time.
The new diversity in the dark matter sector
The hunt for heavy dark matter particles or so-called WIMPS hasn’t yet discovered success, re-search community is searching for alternate dark matter particles, particularly lighter ones. However, the scientists pointed out, one generally anticipates phase changes in the dark sector, after all, there’re some in the noticeable sector. Earlier studies however, have oftentimes ignored them.
There hasn’t been a constant dark matter model for the mass selection which a few planned experiments hope to get access to, “he said. “our HYPER design demonstrates that a phase change could in fact help make dark matter more readily detectable,” said Elor, a postdoctoral researcher at the JGU.
Locating a good model will be the challenge: In the event that dark matter interacts way too strongly with regular material, its (exact known) amount created in the early universe will be way too little, corroborating astrophysical observations. But it’s created in only the correct amount, though, the interaction will be too weak to identify dark matter in current experiments.
“Our main concept, that underpins the HYPER model, would be that the interaction switches abruptly after, so we are able to get the very best of both worlds,” he said. “There is the proper amount of dark matter and a big interaction so that we could detect it,” said McGehee.
And this is the way the researchers envision it: In particle physics, an interaction is generally mediated by a certain particle, a so-called mediator, and also the interaction of dark matter with normal matter. Both formation of dark matter as well as its detection function through this mediator, with the hardiness of the interaction depending on its mass: The larger the mass is, the more weakened the interaction is going to be.
The mediator must be heavy enough initially so that the right degree of dark matter is formed and later light enough so that dark matter is detectable at all. Solution: Following the development of dark matter there was a phase transition during which the mass of the mediator abruptly declined.
“Thus, on the one hand, the amount of dark matter is preserved constant, and on the flip side, the interaction is boosted or strengthened in a way that dark matter really should be directly detectable,” Pierce said.
New model covers almost the full parameter range of planned experiments
” The HYPER model of dark matter can deal with nearly the whole range which the new tests make accessible,”Elor said.
The team initially deemed the maximum cross section of mediator-mediated interaction with neutrons and protons of an atomic nucleus to be in line with astrophysical observations and particular particle physics decays. Next step had been to think about if we had a model for dark matter which displayed the interaction.
And below, we came up with the concept of stage transition, “McGehee stated. “then we computed the amount of dark matter which is present in the universe, and then simulationd the phase change using our calculations,” she said.
A lot of constraints, like the regular level of dark matter, must be considered.
“Here, we need to systematically think about and also include lots of scenarios, for instance, asking the question whether it’s truly sure that our mediator doesn’t abruptly result in the development of new dark matter, that obviously mustn’t be,” Elor said. “But at the end of the morning, we had been certain that our HYPER design works.”
The research is published in the journal Physical Review Letters.
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.130.031803
