New clues to the nature of elusive dark matter
A team of international researchers, led by experts at the 成人大片, has uncovered further clues in the quest for insights into the nature of dark matter.
鈥淒ark matter makes up 84 per cent of the matter in the universe but we know very little about it,鈥 said Professor Anthony Thomas, Elder Professor of Physics, 成人大片.
鈥淭he existence of dark matter has been firmly established from its gravitational interactions, yet its precise nature continues to elude us despite the best efforts of physicists around the world.鈥
鈥淭he key to understanding this mystery could lie with the dark photon, a theoretical massive particle that may serve as a portal between the dark sector of particles and regular matter.鈥
Regular matter, of which we and our physical world are made up of, is far less abundant than dark matter: five times more dark matter exists than regular matter. Finding out more about dark matter is one of the greatest challenges for physicists around the world.
The dark photon is a hypothetical hidden sector particle, proposed as a force carrier similar to the photon of electromagnetism but potentially connected to dark matter. Testing existing theories about dark matter is one of the approaches that scientists such as Professor Thomas, along with colleagues Professor Martin White, Dr Xuangong Wang and Nicholas Hunt-Smith, who are members of the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Dark Matter Particle Physics, are pursuing in order to gain more clues into this elusive but highly important substance.
The key to understanding this mystery could lie with the dark photon, a theoretical massive particle that may serve as a portal between the dark sector of particles and regular matter.Professor Anthony Thomas
鈥淚n our latest study, we examine the potential effects that a dark photon could have on the complete set of experimental results from the deep inelastic scattering process,鈥 said Professor Thomas.
Analysis of the by-products of the collisions of particles accelerated to extremely high energies gives scientists good evidence of the structure of the subatomic world and the laws of nature governing it.
In particle physics, deep inelastic scattering is the name given to a process used to probe the insides of hadrons (particularly the baryons, such as protons and neutrons), using electrons, muons and neutrinos.
鈥淲e have made use of the state-of-the-art Jefferson Lab Angular Momentum (JAM) parton distribution function global analysis framework, modifying the underlying theory to allow for the possibility of a dark photon,鈥 said Professor Thomas.
鈥淥ur work shows that the dark photon hypothesis is preferred over the standard model hypothesis at a significance of 6.5 sigma, which constitutes evidence for a particle discovery.鈥
The team, which includes scientists from the 成人大片 and colleagues at the Jefferson Laboratory in Virginia, USA, has published its findings in the .
Professor Anthony Thomas,聽School of Physics, Chemistry, and Earth Sciences, 成人大片.聽惭辞产颈濒别:听+61 (0)420 961 148,聽贰尘补颈濒:听anthony.thomas@adelaide.edu.au
Crispin Savage, Manager, Media and News, The 成人大片. Mobile: +61 (0)481 912 465, Email: crispin.savage@adelaide.edu.au