Researchers from the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa propose that dark matter could be detected on Earth with the Large Hadron Collider. The work appears in the official scientific record and is cited here with attribution to the hosting institution.
astronomers estimate that dark matter makes up about 85 percent of the universe’s mass and helps explain the gravitational effects observed around galaxies. Yet its exact nature remains unknown.
For years the leading idea was that dark matter consists of weakly interacting massive particles, or WIMPs. These hypothetical particles would interact very slowly with ordinary matter, mostly through gravity. Earlier LHC experiments, however, did not confirm their existence.
South African physicists have proposed another approach to probe the potential constituents of dark matter. The focus is on dark quarks and dark gluons, subatomic components that could form the dark sector. These particles might arise in high-energy proton collisions inside the LHC.
When protons collide at near-light speeds, they shatter into quarks and gluons, which quickly create a cascade of short-lived particles. Some of these products could include dark quarks and dark gluons, yielding a mix of ordinary and dark particles. This could produce what scientists call semi-visible jets.
In this scenario, jets are emitted in pairs. If a regular jet and a semi-visible jet appear in close proximity, the energy carried away by the dark particles could lower the energy visible in the standard pair, creating an imbalance that can be measured.
Although no definitive evidence for semi-visible jets has been observed yet, the concept opens new avenues in the ongoing search for dark matter and helps widen the methods used in collider-based experiments. [Citation: University of the Witwatersrand, 2024; cooperative research outputs and institutional press notes]
There is ongoing international work exploring similar ideas, including efforts by researchers in other countries who are refining detector technologies and data analysis tools to better identify missing energy signatures that might indicate dark sector particles. [Citation: Global collider physics collaborations and related reviews]