This has spurred on the search for new types of particles beyond the limits of the so-called Standard Model of Particle Physics<\/a>. So far, this search has been frustratingly fruitless \u2014 but the LUX-ZEPLIN experiment may have finally caught a glimpse.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n An analysis of data from LUZ-ZEPLIN, a detector composed of 10 tons of ultrapure liquid xenon, one mile underground at the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) in South Dakota, showed a single particle interaction that scientists can’t explain with known background signals from normal matter.<\/p>\n “This was a detailed study in a region we hadn’t explored within this dataset, and we spent months of additional effort to understand all the possible causes of background events,” team leader Sam Eriksen of the University of Bristol in the U.K. said in a statement<\/a>. “We understand our detector and the backgrounds so well that even a single outstanding event, like the one we found, is important.”<\/p>\n What does this tell us about dark matter?<\/p>\n If the event detected by this team was caused by the rare interaction between two WIMPs<\/a>, this would tell scientists some things about these currently hypothetical particles.<\/p>\n Firstly, the signal indicates that WIMPs have a mass around 200 times greater than the mass of a proton. It also suggests that WIMPs would interact with ordinary matter in a way that hasn’t been predicted by the simplest modelling of these particles before.<\/p>\n You may like<\/p>\n \n An illustration of the cylindrical chamber of liquid xenon used by LUX-ZEPLIN to detect interactions between WIMPs. (Image credit: Greg Stewart\/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory)<\/p>\n Of course, these results are not definite yet. This one potential detection isn’t statistically significant enough to confirm that what has actually been detected is an interaction between a WIMP and an everyday matter particle. There still remains a 0.5% chance that the event could be explained by known backgrounds. <\/p>\n As LUX-ZEPPLIN continues to gather the largest dataset in dark matter science, the team will determine if this event has grown in significance or if its significance fades. <\/p>\n One definite positive is the fact that WIMP\/ matter interactions are so rare that it wouldn’t take many detections such as this to confirm the existence of WIMP dark matter, thus solving the puzzle of what the universe’s most mysterious stuff actually is composed of.<\/p>\n “We expect dark matter events to be extremely rare, so only a handful could mark the first detection of WIMP dark matter,” Eriksen said.<\/p>\n The team’s results were presented at the 2026 TeV Particle Astrophysics conference<\/a> and have been submitted to the journal Physical Review Letters.<\/p>\n Get the Space.com Newsletter<\/p>\n![\"a](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/3M6b3dhiSx4Zu4SobgTJah.png\")
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