Scientists at the University of the Witwatersrand (WITS) in South Africa suggest that elusive dark matter can be detected on Earth using the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The research was published in the official gazette Web site scientific institution.
Most astronomers believe that dark matter accounts for 85% of the total mass of the Universe and that its presence can explain the gravitational effects around galaxies. However, so far no one has been able to determine what this substance consists of.
Until recently, dark matter was assumed to be represented by so-called “weakly interacting massive particles” (WMIPs). The hypothesis is that these elements have little interaction with ordinary matter except when gravity comes into play. However, previous experiments at the LHC did not reveal the existence of microwaves.
South African physicists have developed an alternative way to investigate the “building blocks” of dark matter. It targets dark quarks and dark gluons, the subatomic particles that theoretically make up microwaves. These potential elements can arise during high-energy collisions between protons within the LHC.
When protons hit each other inside the LHC at near-light speeds, they break apart into component quarks and gluons, which rapidly transform into a stream of short-lived subatomic particles. These flows are called jets. Possible dark quarks and dark gluons can decay to produce a mixture of both regular and dark particles. This will lead to the appearance of so-called “semi-visible” jets.
According to scientists, jets are born in pairs, and if a regular and semi-visible jet of particles appears nearby, then the dark particles will take away some of the energy from the standard twin jets, creating an energy imbalance.
Although scientists have yet to find evidence for the existence of semi-visible jets, their theory has opened a new direction in the search for dark matter.
Russian scientists before started I’m working on a dark matter detector.