Two experiments with subtle slogans that prevent entire galaxies from flying together have recently published some conflicting results. One came empty handed, while the other gives us every reason to keep searching.
Dark bosons are candidates for dark matter based on force-carrying particles that do not actually pack more force.
Unlike bosons, as we are more familiar with, such as the photons that bind atoms and the gluons that hold the atomic nuclei together, the exchange of dark bosons will rarely affect their surrounding surroundings.
If they did exist, on the other hand, their mass might be responsible for creating a dark matter – the missing mass that provides the extra gravity needed to keep our stellar universe in their familiar composition.
Unfortunately, the presence of such bosses would be as detectable as a rumble in a storm. For the physicist, however, the rumble is still noticeable considering the right kind of experiment.
Two studies – one led by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the other by Ahras University in Denmark – were looking for subtle differences in the position of electrons in isotopes as it jumped between energy levels. If it spreads, this could be a sign of dark boson fumes.
That boson, in theory, comes from the interaction between the circulating electrons and the neutron-forming quarks in the atomic structure.
The team led by MIT used a handful of ytterbium isotopes for their experiment, while calcium was the element of choice for the group led by Ahras University.
Both experiments lined their data on specific types of plots to measure this type of movement in isotopes. When the calcium-based experiment appeared predictable, the yttrium beam plot was closed, with statistically significant deviations in the lineage of the plot.
This is not a reason for any kind of celebration. For one thing, while bosons can explain numbers, they can differentiate the way they calculate, which is a kind of correction called a quadratic field shift.
There is also a need to explain exactly why one experiment might have felt something strange and another might have found nothing.
As always, we need more data. A lot more But finding out what makes up more than a quarter of the universe is the biggest question of science, so any potential leads will be pursued with excitement.
Adding new types of rebellious particles to the standard model cannot be ruled out exactly by anything in physics, but finding it would be a big deal.
Last year physicists were excited to point particles away at strange angles, pointing to an unknown force at work.
Similarly, the number of electrons resurfacing in the XENON1T Dark Matter setup was getting a mother tongue earlier this year, which sparked speculation about a dark subject candidate known as fiction.
As interesting as these results are, our hearts have been broken before. In 2016, there was a rumor of a kind of dark matter candidate known as the Madala boson being found in data collected by the Large Hadron Collider in search of the Higgs particle.
These particles can be thought of as a kind of dark version of the Higgs boson, lending dark matter its power in no other way.
CERNA threw cold water On gossip or beat, says sad. Which doesn’t mean that such particles don’t exist, or that the signals aren’t enticing – just that we can’t be sure with any real confidence.
Bigger collisions, more sensitive equipment, and clever new ways to detect whispers and microscopic glimpses of virtually existing particles can one day get the answers we need.
The dark matter is sure not to make it easy.
This research was published in Physical Review Letters, Here and here.
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