Scientists have simply slashed the potential hiding areas for darkish matter particles.
The LUX-ZEPLIN, or LZ, experiment has looked for and dominated out the existence of darkish matter particles with a large swath of properties, researchers report August 26 at two conferences. Darkish matter is a substance whose affect will be seen on the size of galaxies and galaxy clusters, however which has by no means been straight detected.
LZ searches for a hypothetical sort of darkish matter particle referred to as a weakly interacting huge particle, particularly WIMPs with plenty above 9 billion electron volts. (For comparability, a proton has a mass of round 1 billion electron volts). The LZ detector, stuffed with 10 metric tons of liquid xenon, screens for atomic nuclei recoiling when WIMPs plow into the liquid (SN: 7/7/22).
The researchers characterize WIMPs by their cross part — the chance {that a} particle will work together. The end result shrinks the utmost doable cross part to a couple of fifth that allowed by earlier outcomes, LZ researchers report on the TeV Particle Astrophysics assembly in Chicago and on the Mild Detection in Noble Parts assembly in São Paulo.
“We’re making huge strides into new territory,” says physicist Chamkaur Ghag of College School London, spokesperson of LZ.
The examine was carried out with 280 days’ price of knowledge. LZ’s remaining outcomes will probably be based mostly on 1,000 days of knowledge, and it’s anticipated to additional carve away on the darkish matter’s potentialities — or discover proof of it.
