B.B.C. Article
Scientists could be nearing the final phase of the search for dark matter: the enigmatic substance thought to make up a quarter of our Universe.
The first results from a particle detector called LUX show it is the most powerful experiment of its kind.
It did not detect any dark matter during its first run, but scientists say it is poised to probe deeper than ever before during its second in 2014.
It has also ruled out earlier hints of dark matter shown by other experiments.
Dr Chamkaur Ghag, a collaborator on the LUX experiment from University College London, said: "If the dark matter is out there and if it interacts the way we think it does we should really start seeing it now."
Not finding any direct evidence for dark matter particles would mean that physicists would have to "go back to the drawing board", he added.

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Huge Dark Matter Experiment Finds Nothing but More Mysteries
BY ADAM MANN10.30.1312:18 PM



The hunt for dark matter just keeps getting more confusing. Today scientists released findings from the first three months of the Large Underground Xenon experiment, which looks directly for the invisible particles thought to make up dark matter.

Many physicists hoped that the highly anticipated results would clear up the situation surrounding dark matter experiments, which have so far led to contradictory conclusions about the nature of the mysterious substance. Some thought that LUX might show them which way to go, narrowing the types of particles they might pursue. Instead, the experiment turned up empty.

“Basically, we saw nothing. But we saw nothing better than anyone else so far,” said particle physicist Daniel McKinsey of Yale, a member of the LUX collaboration.

It might appear strange to the rest of us, but a null finding is actually encouraging for physicists, who will use the results to set stringent limits on what kind of dark matter they might expect to find in the future. It also seems to rule out the results of several previous experiments, which had seen hints of what might be dark matter.

“Something that they had thought was in play is being kicked off the field,” said physicist Richard Gaitskell of Brown University, who also works on LUX.

But other scientists are not convinced that LUX has excluded their findings, and it’s likely the debate will continue.
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The major findings are more or less split into two camps: those who think the dark matter WIMP particles are relatively heavy and those who suspect they might be fairly light. Heavy in this case means a particle of around 100 gigaelectronvolts (GeV), or roughly 100 times the mass of a proton. Heavy WIMPs are predicted by a theory known as supersymmetry, which adds a host of new particles to the quarks, neutrinos, and electrons we already know about. If a detector found a 100 GeV WIMP particle, it would be momentous not only for being the first dark matter detection, but also as the first real evidence in favor of supersymmetry. Because supersymmetry is considered by many scientists to be the future of physics, a 100 GeV dark matter particle has a lot of support in the field.
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But scientists have no idea what dark matter is nor what possible exotic properties it might have. It could simply be that assumption is wrong and nature is more complex than the simplest models would suggest. Still, Feng acknowledges that the LUX results are starting to eat away at the predictions of some theories.
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campermon wrote::rofl:

I think I've discovered 'anti dark matter' too.

I observed that the dark matter was annihilated when subjected to the bombardment of sodium hypochlorite particles.

The rate of annihilation was observed to be a maximum when the particles were accelerated to optimum velocity through a pressure gradient device:



It was noted that full annihilation was achieved when a flexible planar surface (composed of intertwined micro-filaments to maximize surface area) was placed in contact with the remaining dark matter and a rotational motion imposed. It was observed that high values of ω led to an increased efficiency in particle annihilation. In this experiment we used:

kennyc wrote:

Publish Man! Publish!! The Journal of Cosmology awaits!

B.B.C. Article
Dark matter hunt: LUX experiment reaches critical phase
The quest to find the most mysterious particles in the Universe is entering a critical phase, scientists say.
An experiment located in the bottom of a gold mine in South Dakota, US, could offer the best chance yet of detecting dark matter.
Scientists believe this substance makes up more than a quarter of the cosmos, yet no-one has ever seen it directly.
Early results from this detector, which is called LUX, confirmed it was the most powerful experiment of its kind.
In the coming weeks, it will begin a 300-day-long run that could provide the first direct evidence of these enigmatic particles.

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