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Scientists in Virginia are trying for mysterious darkish matter – and have turned to really old rocks.
The substance, which makes up greater than 80 p.c of all matter within the universe, shapes and impacts the cosmos. But it’s totally invisible and stays undetectable by regular sensors and strategies.
Analyzing billion-year-old rocks, researchers at Virginia Tech hope to search out traces of darkish matter. The thought was first proposed within the Eighties. Technological advances since then led them to revisit the concept. What if there have been traces in Earth’s minerals?
“It’s crazy. When I first heard about this idea, I was like — this is insane. I want to do it,” physics professor Patrick Huber mentioned in a assertion.
Huber, who’s constructing a new lab to check darkish matter theories, has been awarded a number of million {dollars} from the National Science Foundation and National Nuclear Security Administration for his analysis.
He likened his work to a “midlife crisis.”
Using new imaging, Huber and his colleagues hope to uncover trails of destruction from long-ago darkish matter interactions inside crystal lattice buildings – a sample of atoms found in a mineral crystal.
Dark matter’s interactions with different matter is unimaginable to understand besides when it collides with the nucleus of a seen matter atom. The nucleus recoils from the collision and releases vitality.
Vsevolod Ivanov, who’s collaborating with Huber, defined that when a high-energy particle inside a rock bounces off of the charged core of an atom – the essential constructing block of matter – inside a rock, backward motion can pop that core, or nucleus, misplaced. The hole the nucleus leaves behind marks structural modifications inside the crystal.
“We’ll take a crystal that’s been exposed to different particles for millions of years and subtract the distributions that correspond to things we do know,” Ivanov mentioned. “Whatever is left must be something new, and that could be the dark matter.”
The researchers are working to establish and find potential candidates that could possibly be darkish matter detectors.
Partnering with researchers on the University of Zurich, they’ve began making 3D renderings of those high-energy particles in artificial lithium fluoride, which is utilized in batteries and ceramics.
The artificial substance received’t be a good darkish matter detector, however it’ll assist Huber and scientists to find out alerts.
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