{"id":248778,"date":"2025-07-08T19:25:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-08T19:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/248778\/"},"modified":"2025-07-08T19:25:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-08T19:25:09","slug":"record-setting-dark-matter-detector-comes-up-empty-and-thats-good-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/248778\/","title":{"rendered":"Record-Setting Dark Matter Detector Comes Up Empty\u2014and That’s Good News"},"content":{"rendered":"

WIMPs (weakly interacting massive particles) are one of the most serious contenders for dark matter\u2014the \u201cmissing\u201d mass supposedly constituting 85% of our universe. Given its elusiveness, dark matter tests the patience and creativity of physicists. But the latest results from LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ)<\/a>, the South Dakota-based detector, may have brought scientists a small step closer to catching WIMPs in action.<\/p>\n

In a recent Physical Review Letters<\/a> paper, scientists analyzed 280 days\u2019 worth of data from LUX-ZEPLIN, reporting the tightest ever upper limit on WIMPs. The result\u2014a near fivefold improvement\u2014demonstrates how physicists are increasingly getting better at circumventing the problem that dark matter is, well, dark; the elusive stuff evades any detection method that depends on materials interacting with visible light or other types of radiation.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s ample evidence<\/a> to suggest that dark matter does in fact exist, including numerous astrophysical observations<\/a> hinting at some invisible matter exerting gravitational force on objects we can see. Physicists, as a result, tend to use materials that we can see, such as liquid forms of heavyweight elements like xenon, and simply wait for some unknown particle to interact with it. That strategy\u2014waiting for particles to interact with heavy elements\u2014is a well-tested approach for detecting WIMPs, hypothetical particles that interact with gravity but on a scale so tiny that only the most sensitive detectors might catch a glimpse.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The LUX-ZEPLIN experiment<\/a>, located one mile underground in a decommissioned South Dakota gold mine, employs nearly 15,000 pounds (7 tons) of liquid xenon. The chemical element\u2019s high atomic mass and density make it potentially easier for scientists to detect any unknown particles that may pass through the detector. Also, liquid xenon is transparent, preventing any unwanted noise\u2014usually arising from radioactive matter around the detector\u2014from spoiling an experiment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you think of the search for dark matter like looking for buried treasure, we\u2019ve dug almost five times deeper than anyone else has in the past,\u201d said Scott Kravitz, a physicist at the University of Texas at Austin and deputy coordinator for LZ, in a press release<\/a>. \u201cThat\u2019s something you don\u2019t do with a million shovels\u2014you do it by inventing a new tool.\u201d<\/p>\n

The latest experiment also represents the first time the LZ team applied a technique called \u201csalting,\u201d in which false WIMP signals were added in advance. This helped the researchers\u2014who, of course, would love to find dark matter\u2014avoid bias and stay skeptical of potentially promising signals.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a human tendency to want to see patterns in data, so it\u2019s really important when you enter this new regime that no bias wanders in,\u201d said Scott Haselschwart, a physicist at the University of Michigan and LZ physics coordinator, in the same release. \u201cIf you make a discovery, you want to get it right.\u201d<\/p>\n

The next steps for the LZ experiment are to continue pressing against the upper limit for WIMPs and utilize the detector\u2019s cutting-edge technology to probe other interesting and rare physics processes, explained Amy Cottle, a physicist at University College London also involved with LZ, in the statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve demonstrated how strong we are as a WIMP search machine, and we\u2019re going to keep running and getting even better\u2014but there\u2019s lots of other things we can do with this detector,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WIMPs (weakly interacting massive particles) are one of the most serious contenders for dark matter\u2014the \u201cmissing\u201d mass supposedly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":248779,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3845],"tags":[6678,5538,74,70,16,15,96177],"class_list":{"0":"post-248778","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-physics","8":"tag-dark-matter","9":"tag-particle-physics","10":"tag-physics","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-wimps"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114819257017186936","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248778\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}