A new paper ask : What if antimatter is the portal vein into the dark universe of discourse ?
Measurements of the cosmos reveal that most of its mass is likely “ dark subject , ” invisible stuff that interacts with regular subject via the Pentateuch of sobriety but has n’t been straight detected , despite major feat to find it . scientist are hunt dark matter from various fronts . One team is look for a popular candidate , the axion , based on the path it interact with a kind of subject called antimatter .
Axions are perhaps the 2d most pop dark matter candidate after a class of particles called WIMPs , or Weakly Interactive Massive Particles , which also have n’t been notice . Axions are incredibly low - mass hypothetic particle that scientist originally proposed to lick a mote cathartic closed book called thestrong - CP job , but scientist subsequently realized these particles could explain the excess the great unwashed in the macrocosm .
BASE at CERN with spokesperson Stefan Ulmer.Photo: CERN
Meanwhile , antimatter is kind of like matter ’s evil twin ; every subatomic speck has a corresponding antiparticle , a mirror figure with the same mass but opposite electric charge . Antimatter is n’t especially rare and is produced in distinctive atomic decomposition processes that hap here on Earth , but there ’s a destiny less antimatter than matter in the universe , and physicist are n’t quite certain why .
scientist in general assume that drab matter would interact with matter and antimatter in the same way , Christian Smorra , first author of the newspaper and a researcher at RIKEN in Japan , told Gizmodo in an electronic mail . But “ this supposal has however never been experimentally tested up to now , since dark matter searches in atomic physics used only matter probes , ” not antimatter probes . Maybe antimatter interacts with dark matter in a way that even thing does n’t .
The research worker working at insane asylum in Japan , Germany , Switzerland , and the United States took information using the Baryon - Antibaryon Symmetry Experiment ( BASE ) at CERN in Switzerland . CERN’santiproton deceleratorproduces and slow proton ’ antimatter counterparts , prognosticate antiproton , and BASE traps them in an utmost void . The squad made three months ’ worth of precision measurements of these antiprotonsback in 2017 , look at the manner they act as in a magnetic field . Now , scientists reexamined that data , hunting for change to the antiprotons ’ whirl precedency . particle have an unlearned spin that makes them sort of like a quantum version of a spinning top . Interaction with axions , the theorized dark affair particle , might change the way they rotate around their spin axis , the way a top wobbles before it descend over .
This search scheme comes with an added benefit : If dreary affair interact otherwise with antimatter than it does with unconstipated matter , this might help explain why there ’s so much more matter than antimatter in the universe .
As has always been the case in dark affair searches , the researchers did n’t find evidence of axions , grant tothe paperpublished in Nature . But in this epoch of cathartic where the obvious things have already been attain , scientists must spend a lot of time predominate out what properties morose topic does n’t have , hoping that finally a breakthrough emerge from all of the null termination .
It ’s an crucial hunt . “ I ’m glad someone is paying attention to axion couplings besides axion - photon couplings , ” that is , hunting for axions that interact with particle we do do it about apart from light particles , Chanda Prescod - Weinstein , an assistant prof of physics who studies axions at the University of New Hampshire , told Gizmodo in an email .
Despite yet another null result , the lookup is n’t over . “ Future work should take to further restrain the axion – antiproton coupling and to depend for grounds of interactions between axion dark matter and other var. of antimatter , such as positrons ( the antiparticle of negatron ) , ” Gianpaolo Carosi , physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory , wrote in a Nature commentary .
Next , the team will amend their measurement ’s sensitivity , Smorra assure Gizmodo . All we get laid about axions is that they ’re very wakeful — but there ’s a whole range of just how light they might be , if they existed . The search for dark thing carry on .
AntimatterCERNDark matterParticle physicsScience
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