Scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory attempted to observe dark matter in a brightly-lit hallway in the basement using the sensitivity of their neutrino detectors. Neutrino Alley, where the team works, is located beneath the Spallation Neutron Source, a powerful particle accelerator. Following
. They are produced when stars die and become supernovas, or, on a more down-to-Earth level, as a by-product of proton collisions in particle accelerators.
Neutrinos aren’t the only by-product of SNS’s operations, though. Dark matter is also produced when particle accelerators crash protons together. Following up on years of theoretical calculation, the COHERENT team set out to capitalize both on SNS’s power and on the sensitivity of their neutrino detectors to observe dark matter in Neutrino Alley.
“We know exactly how the detector would respond to dark matter if dark matter had certain characteristics, so we were looking for that specific fingerprint.”The fingerprint in question is the way in which the nuclei of the atoms in the neutrino detector recoil when hit by a neutrino, or in this case, by a dark matter particle.
“We’re floating in a sea of dark matter,” said Jason Newby, group leader for neutrino research at Oak Ridge National Lab and a co-author of the study. The consensus among physicists is that dark matter makes up to 85% of the mass of the Universe. It must be subject to gravity to explain the Universe’s behavior, but it doesn’t interact with any sort of light or electromagnetic wave, appearing dark.
“Even though we’re in the realm of mostly no results,” said Newby, “it’s really important that everywhere you can look, you look, and then you can rule out a whole number of possibilities and focus on a new area with strategy rather than just using a ‘spaghetti on the wall’ approach.”“We’re extending our reach for what models for dark matter can exist, and that’s very powerful,” said Scholberg.
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