Re:Is dark matter's main rival theory dead?
by jfengel on Monday May 13, 2024 @02:44PM
(#40346770)
Probably not. There were hopes that dark matter might arise from supersymmetry, and that if so the LHC might be able to create it.
Thus far they haven't found it, which is a big strike against supersymmetry, as well as a loss of an avenue for exploring dark matter. So back to the drawing board.
At that drawing board, they have other tools to look at. Often, they're astronomical and cosmological. One big clue is the "Bullet Cluster", where two galaxies collided, and the regular mass smashed into each other but the dark matter kept going. And they can look at the distribution of the Cosmic Microwave Background, which would show the influence of early dark matter.
Using that they know that dark matter must be "cold", i.e. not moving near the speed of light. So it must be fairly heavy -- heavier than neutrinos, at least, another particle that's maddeningly hard to detect. (They do have neutrino detectors that also hope to spot a dark matter collision event, but it's unlikely.)
If supersymmetry doesn't cut it, they'll need a new way to fix other problems with the Standard Model. Those would hopefully predict another dark-matter-like particle (massive, weakly interacting), which in turn would point in the direction of a detector. But there aren't any front-runners at the moment.
Thus far they haven't found it, which is a big strike against supersymmetry, as well as a loss of an avenue for exploring dark matter. So back to the drawing board.
At that drawing board, they have other tools to look at. Often, they're astronomical and cosmological. One big clue is the "Bullet Cluster", where two galaxies collided, and the regular mass smashed into each other but the dark matter kept going. And they can look at the distribution of the Cosmic Microwave Background, which would show the influence of early dark matter.
Using that they know that dark matter must be "cold", i.e. not moving near the speed of light. So it must be fairly heavy -- heavier than neutrinos, at least, another particle that's maddeningly hard to detect. (They do have neutrino detectors that also hope to spot a dark matter collision event, but it's unlikely.)
If supersymmetry doesn't cut it, they'll need a new way to fix other problems with the Standard Model. Those would hopefully predict another dark-matter-like particle (massive, weakly interacting), which in turn would point in the direction of a detector. But there aren't any front-runners at the moment.