Mystery dark-matter signal
Excitement caused by a mysterious signal from one of the world’s most sensitive dark-matter detectors earlier this year has led to a clutch of papers hoping to explain the phenomenon. Built to detect WIMPS — ‘weakly interacting massive particles, — the XENON1T experiment in June reported hints of much lighter particles, triggering a wave of excitement among theorists. Now, a leading journal has published five papers, and each offers a different explanation — including various exotic types of dark matter, ‘axion’ particles created in the Sun’s core and an anomalous magnetism of neutrinos. But the signal could still turn out to be a statistical fluke or the effect of tiny tritium interlopers.
Physics | 7 min readReferences: Collection of Physical Review Letters papers.
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