dark matter

Until recently, scientists had never detected black holes in the “mass gap.” Now, particle physicists are exploring ideas beyond the Standard Model that could explain them.

From Quanta Magazine, Nov. 23, 2020: Physicists plan to leave no stone unturned, checking whether dark matter tickles different types of detectors, nudges starlight, warms planetary cores or even lodges in rocks. Their efforts include the SENSEI and ADMX experiments, in which Fermilab plays a key role.

From Gizmodo, Nov. 10, 2020: Fermilab and University of Maryland scientist Dan Carney and a small group of scientists have begun work on a prototype they say could one day lead to a dark matter detector capable of pinpointing the minute gravitational pull of a particle we can neither see nor feel. The detector is simple in design, but the theory behind its construction amounts to a fundamental rethinking of the search for dark matter.

Researchers have proposed a novel method for finding dark matter, the cosmos’s mystery material that has eluded detection for decades. The proposed experiment, in which a billion millimeter-sized pendulums would act as dark matter sensors, would be the first to hunt for dark matter solely through its gravitational interaction with visible matter.

From Mining.com, Nov. 2, 2020: Three batches of 99.99% pure copper plates mined in Finland, rolled into plates in Germany, shipped across land and sea to Fermilab, and finally rushed into storage 100 meters underground are being used in an experiment to search for dark matter.

From Clarin, Oct. 29, 2020: Cuando era chico, Javier Tiffenberg exploraba las profundidades de los océanos a bordo del Calypso. Si quería ir más lejos, cerraba la escotilla de una nave espacial y se lanzaba a recorrer galaxias brumosas. Sólo era cuestión de sumergirse en El mundo submarino, de Jacques Cousteau, o de sintonizar Cosmos, de Carl Sagan.

Department of Energy officials have formally signed off on project completion for LUX-ZEPLIN, or LZ: an ultrasensitive experiment that will use 10 metric tons of liquid xenon to hunt for signals of interactions with theorized dark matter particles called WIMPs.

From APS Physics, Oct. 20, 2020: The SENSEI dark matter detector provides world-leading sensitivity for distinguishing lightweight dark matter from background noise.

Fermilab joins the global celebration of Dark Matter Day. Hear from Fermilab scientists during a special webinar on Saturday, Oct. 31, at 1 p.m. CT. Take a virtual tour of the lab’s dark matter experiments and detectors, and learn how Fermilab is helping answer questions about the mysterious stuff that makes up 25% of our universe.

From NIST, Oct. 13, 2020: Researchers at NIST and their colleagues, including Fermilab scientist Gordan Krnjaic, have proposed a novel method for finding dark matter. The experiment, in which a billion millimeter-sized pendulums would act as dark matter sensors, would be the first to hunt for dark matter solely through its gravitational interaction with visible matter. A three-minute animation illustrates the new technique.