8 ms·

Breakthrough Announced in Dark Matter Detection Technology

101 points by indescions_2018 9y ago

iooi 9y ago
Original paper here: https://journals.aps.org/prl/pdf/10.1103/PhysRevLett.120.151301 https://journals.aps.org/prl/pdf/10.1103/PhysRevLett.120.151...
- madengr 9y ago
  Thanks. Do you know a non-pay-walled link to : https://aip.scitation.org/doi/full/10.1063/1.3583380 https://aip.scitation.org/doi/full/10.1063/1.3583380
  - underko 9y ago
    SciHub works.
- tombone12 9y ago
  There is a viewpoint about it too, basically a (kind of) popular account of the result: https://physics.aps.org/articles/v11/34 https://physics.aps.org/articles/v11/34
komali2 9y ago
Can someone help me understand, is the "breakthrough" this? : >t is the world’s first and only experiment to have achieved the necessary sensitivity to “hear” the telltale signs of dark matter axions. This technological breakthrough is the result of more than 30 years of research and development, with the latest piece of the puzzle coming in the form of a quantum-enabled device that allows ADMX to listen for axions more closely than any experiment ever built. Basically, is the purpose to announce that a new higher-fidelity device has come online? If that's the case, I feel mildly bamboozled... creation of a newer, better tool doesn't to me indicate any new "discoveries" regarding dark matter. I'm pretty bad at understanding anything "physics" above the most basic classical stuff though so it's very possible I'm totally off base here.
- comstar 9y ago
  The title nor the article make no claim of such a discovery. The "breakthrough" is, as claimed, the technology that will hopefully be used to detect something leading to making a discovery.
- topspin 9y ago
  Yes, the "breakthrough" is the instrument; an ultra low noise receiver with a new type of amplifier. Thus "Detection Technology" in the title.
- MegaDeKay 9y ago
  The article describes how a better instrument enables a search in the band of interest: “This result signals the start of the true hunt for axions,” said Fermilab’s Andrew Sonnenschein, the operations manager for ADMX. “If dark matter axions exist within the frequency band we will be probing for the next few years, then it’s only a matter of time before we find them.”
  - tombone12 9y ago
    [for this experiment] I presume he added silently, or did he just diss all the other axion searches out there?
- ajross 9y ago
  The headline calls it a "breakthrough technology", not "breakthrough science". Basically this is a new experiment about to begin operating. If nothing goes wrong, within a few years we'll be able to confirm or reject the axion theory of dark matter. Which is pretty big news, all told. A confirmed axion detection would be at least as important to physics as the Higgs result from CERN or the discovery of the W/Z in the 80's.
  - AnimalMuppet 9y ago
    > If nothing goes wrong, within a few years we'll be able to confirm or reject the axion theory of dark matter. Well, we'll be able to reject the current axion theory of dark matter. I suspect we won't be able to reject all possible ones. (But I don't know for sure.)
noetic_techy 9y ago
I hope they detect nothing. I'm rooting for modified gravity theories.
- davidcuddeback 9y ago
  Modified gravity theories don't fit all the evidence, such as the distribution of mass in the Bullet Cluster [1] or the large-scale structure of the CMB [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullet_Cluster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullet_Cluster [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter#Cosmic_microwave_background https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter#Cosmic_microwave_b...
  - truantbuick 9y ago
    Some would disagree: http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2018/04/no-that-galaxy-without-dark-matter-has.html http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2018/04/no-that-galaxy-with... As a non-scientist, it seems like dark matter has been relentlessly adjusted and overfitted and still appears very inadequate to fit all the evidence.
    - davidcuddeback 9y ago
      > Some would disagree Some do, but they're in the minority (which, to be clear, doesn't necessarily make them wrong). You can find scientists who refute climate change, too. That says nothing of the state of prevailing consensus, though.
      - zamalek 9y ago
        > You can find scientists who refute climate change, too. That's an appeal to nature as well as a false equivalency. It is difficult to refute climate change because we have incredible amounts of tactile observations that match predictions - the stuff from which the scientific method stems. At one point science (well, philosophy as the progenitor of science) said that the Earth was flat. It was a small number of rebellious scientists that corrected this misconception. Group-think and consensus do not mean that you are correct, it could mean that you are collectively wrong. We've never seen dark matter. The so-called "evidence" that is continuously regurgitated[1] is an image of the problem. It would be like making a map of the missing periodic table of elements and calling it all "Dark Elements," never bothering to figure out what the missing elements individually are. We didn't do that, which is why we can do so many useful things with heavier elements today. If axion decay is observed, I will have no choice but to agree with the WIMP theories. As it stands, there is zero credible and scientific evidence for the stuff. [1]: http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2007/01/3D_map_of_dark_matter_as_seen_by_Hubble http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2007/01/3D_map_of_da...
Taniwha 9y ago
there was a Scientific American article on this a few o months back (sadly paywalled). Essentially they can ringfence the potential masses/energies of axions based on other things, if they exist, this device contains a resonant cavity that should be able to detect them breaking down across most of the theoretical energy range
toddio 9y ago
I hope other scientists figure out the riddles the dark matter theories are supposed to solve. These particle hunts seem like a waste of time and money.
starpilot 9y ago
No. Some things are not meant to be questioned. Science has gone too far.
- Wh1zz 9y ago
  What makes you say that?
wheresmyusern 9y ago
i recently saw a paper that called into question the expansion of the universe. i think it was by a man called eric lerner. he provided evidence that seemed pretty convincing. is there anything to this?
- russdill 9y ago
  Looks like he's one of the electrical universe proponents. http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/lerner_errors.html http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/lerner_errors.html
angel_j 9y ago
What frequency range are they scanning?

iooi 9y ago

Original paper here: https://journals.aps.org/prl/pdf/10.1103/PhysRevLett.120.151301 https://journals.aps.org/prl/pdf/10.1103/PhysRevLett.120.151...

madengr 9y ago
Thanks. Do you know a non-pay-walled link to : https://aip.scitation.org/doi/full/10.1063/1.3583380 https://aip.scitation.org/doi/full/10.1063/1.3583380
- underko 9y ago
  SciHub works.
tombone12 9y ago
There is a viewpoint about it too, basically a (kind of) popular account of the result: https://physics.aps.org/articles/v11/34 https://physics.aps.org/articles/v11/34

komali2 9y ago

Can someone help me understand, is the "breakthrough" this? : >t is the world’s first and only experiment to have achieved the necessary sensitivity to “hear” the telltale signs of dark matter axions. This technological breakthrough is the result of more than 30 years of research and development, with the latest piece of the puzzle coming in the form of a quantum-enabled device that allows ADMX to listen for axions more closely than any experiment ever built. Basically, is the purpose to announce that a new higher-fidelity device has come online? If that's the case, I feel mildly bamboozled... creation of a newer, better tool doesn't to me indicate any new "discoveries" regarding dark matter. I'm pretty bad at understanding anything "physics" above the most basic classical stuff though so it's very possible I'm totally off base here.

comstar 9y ago
The title nor the article make no claim of such a discovery. The "breakthrough" is, as claimed, the technology that will hopefully be used to detect something leading to making a discovery.
topspin 9y ago
Yes, the "breakthrough" is the instrument; an ultra low noise receiver with a new type of amplifier. Thus "Detection Technology" in the title.
MegaDeKay 9y ago
The article describes how a better instrument enables a search in the band of interest: “This result signals the start of the true hunt for axions,” said Fermilab’s Andrew Sonnenschein, the operations manager for ADMX. “If dark matter axions exist within the frequency band we will be probing for the next few years, then it’s only a matter of time before we find them.”
- tombone12 9y ago
  [for this experiment] I presume he added silently, or did he just diss all the other axion searches out there?
ajross 9y ago
The headline calls it a "breakthrough technology", not "breakthrough science". Basically this is a new experiment about to begin operating. If nothing goes wrong, within a few years we'll be able to confirm or reject the axion theory of dark matter. Which is pretty big news, all told. A confirmed axion detection would be at least as important to physics as the Higgs result from CERN or the discovery of the W/Z in the 80's.
- AnimalMuppet 9y ago
  > If nothing goes wrong, within a few years we'll be able to confirm or reject the axion theory of dark matter. Well, we'll be able to reject the current axion theory of dark matter. I suspect we won't be able to reject all possible ones. (But I don't know for sure.)

noetic_techy 9y ago

I hope they detect nothing. I'm rooting for modified gravity theories.

davidcuddeback 9y ago
Modified gravity theories don't fit all the evidence, such as the distribution of mass in the Bullet Cluster [1] or the large-scale structure of the CMB [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullet_Cluster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullet_Cluster [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter#Cosmic_microwave_background https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter#Cosmic_microwave_b...
- truantbuick 9y ago
  Some would disagree: http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2018/04/no-that-galaxy-without-dark-matter-has.html http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2018/04/no-that-galaxy-with... As a non-scientist, it seems like dark matter has been relentlessly adjusted and overfitted and still appears very inadequate to fit all the evidence.
  - davidcuddeback 9y ago
    > Some would disagree Some do, but they're in the minority (which, to be clear, doesn't necessarily make them wrong). You can find scientists who refute climate change, too. That says nothing of the state of prevailing consensus, though.
    - zamalek 9y ago
      > You can find scientists who refute climate change, too. That's an appeal to nature as well as a false equivalency. It is difficult to refute climate change because we have incredible amounts of tactile observations that match predictions - the stuff from which the scientific method stems. At one point science (well, philosophy as the progenitor of science) said that the Earth was flat. It was a small number of rebellious scientists that corrected this misconception. Group-think and consensus do not mean that you are correct, it could mean that you are collectively wrong. We've never seen dark matter. The so-called "evidence" that is continuously regurgitated[1] is an image of the problem. It would be like making a map of the missing periodic table of elements and calling it all "Dark Elements," never bothering to figure out what the missing elements individually are. We didn't do that, which is why we can do so many useful things with heavier elements today. If axion decay is observed, I will have no choice but to agree with the WIMP theories. As it stands, there is zero credible and scientific evidence for the stuff. [1]: http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2007/01/3D_map_of_dark_matter_as_seen_by_Hubble http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2007/01/3D_map_of_da...

Taniwha 9y ago

there was a Scientific American article on this a few o months back (sadly paywalled). Essentially they can ringfence the potential masses/energies of axions based on other things, if they exist, this device contains a resonant cavity that should be able to detect them breaking down across most of the theoretical energy range

toddio 9y ago

I hope other scientists figure out the riddles the dark matter theories are supposed to solve. These particle hunts seem like a waste of time and money.

starpilot 9y ago

No. Some things are not meant to be questioned. Science has gone too far.

Wh1zz 9y ago
What makes you say that?

wheresmyusern 9y ago

i recently saw a paper that called into question the expansion of the universe. i think it was by a man called eric lerner. he provided evidence that seemed pretty convincing. is there anything to this?

russdill 9y ago
Looks like he's one of the electrical universe proponents. http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/lerner_errors.html http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/lerner_errors.html

angel_j 9y ago

What frequency range are they scanning?