In Search of Dark Matter, Scientists Have a Rock-Solid New Strategy – The Debrief

Scientists are looking in an unlikely place for clues to one of the universe’s most enduring mysteries, as geological formations billions of years old have become a new target for the search for dark matter.

The effort, led by physicists at Virginia Tech, suggests that evidence of dark matter’s interaction with Earth over time can be found in the subtle traces left behind. to ancient rock formations.

“It’s crazy,” said theoretical physicist Patrick Huber, who is Director of the Center for Neutrino Physics at Virginia Tech. “When I first heard about this idea, I said – this is crazy. I want to do it.”

Now, Huber and his team hope to reveal that rock formations dating back billions of years — often the focus of geologists — may soon have dual uses as tools. invisible natural dark.

The Hunt for Dark Matter

Scientists have had little success in directly detecting dark matter, the imaginary light-free matter that physicists expect to make up about 85% of the mass in our universe. Despite decades of experiments aimed at uncovering it, this mysterious mystery still exists.

While most of the search for dark matter is still focused on the distant universe, Huber and his colleagues decided to take a different approach: one that would look inside the Earth, instead of there is more, for the long-sought evidence of this miracle “is not there.” ” issue.

In particular, evidence of dark matter interactions can be found buried in some of the world’s oldest rocks, a hypothesis that Huber and his team are currently exploring. with funding from the National Science Foundation and the National Nuclear Security Administration.

This method, while unusual compared to previous efforts aimed at uncovering the most difficult matter in the universe, suggests that only about 5 percent of a universe that falls into categories that astronomers can easily observe. Although the dark matter that makes up the rest of the universe cannot be directly observed, its gravitational influence on the universe around it can be inferred from the behavior of galaxies and other objects. of heaven.

Similarly, if the Earth has also been affected by dark matter in its 4.6 billion year history, there may be evidence of these ancient interactions left in the structures. of minerals deep in the ground.

Searching for Good Money for a Dark Matter

Thanks to a $3.5 million Growing Convergence Research award from the National Science Foundation, an ambitious project to search deep within the Earth for evidence of a long-standing cosmic mystery will soon continue, with additional funding of issued by the National Nuclear Security Administration.

The research effort will include the construction of a new lab in Robeson Hall at Virginia Tech, which will be custom-designed to meet the needs of Huber’s major project.

Scientists like Huber are well aware of the problems such research can present. Since dark matter interacts only weakly with ordinary forms of matter, detecting invisible objects is difficult, and so far, no direct evidence of its existence has been found. However, many unusual phenomena observed throughout the universe, including the rotation of galaxies at speeds beyond what should be based on their apparent mass alone, have kept the search for dark matter alive. it’s still alive.

Faced with this challenge, Huber and his team plan to use advanced imaging technology to help them look for evidence of the microscopic damage trails caused by collisions between dark matter and matter. ancient mineral crystal.

Novel Method

In theory, when particles with high dark energy collide with the nucleus of other particles in the rocks, a recoil effect is produced, which should dislodge the nucleus and produce a microscopic structural defect.

Vsevolod Ivanov, one of Huber’s collaborators on the project, said the team plans to look for evidence of such defects in ancient crystals, which have been exposed to collisions with different types of particles in the long past. since its inception.

“We will take a crystal that has been exposed to different particles for millions of years and remove the distribution that corresponds to what we know,” Ivanov said in a statement.

“What’s left must be something new, and that would be dark matter,” he says.

Another problem arises in the search for suitable rocks that can be known as “detectors” of natural dark matter. Another problem is how the radioactive decay that occurs deep in the Earth can sometimes affect the crystal structures. To help find rocks that haven’t been affected by the background radiation, University Distinguished Professor Robert Bodnar, a recent graduate of the National Academy of Sciences, plans to work with Huber’s team to help find samples that show signs of radiation. few of such influences are based on Earth.

Taking Invisible Pictures

Now, Huber’s team has announced a collaboration with the Brain Research Center of the University of Zurich, a collaboration that will deploy the latest imaging technology for the project. With the power of 3D imaging developed for the analysis of the nervous system of animals, the first collaborative effort has revealed high-resolution images of particle tracks found inside crystals of lithium fluoride.

Lithium fluoride, which is unfortunately not a suitable substance to use in the search for dark matter interactions, was chosen for these early imaging experiments because it has good properties that make it suitable for forming a base. of the kinds of promising signs that the group trusts. to get.

In addition to searching for dark matter, the team’s new approach to solving this mystery may have other important applications. For example, the new imaging capabilities they plan to use could also be used to increase nuclear transparency, particularly with equipment designed to monitor powerful nuclear chemicals.

Huber and his team hope that by thinking outside the box, their new method may finally reveal the extent of dark matter’s influence on Earth over time, and ultimately, a discovery that can provide new ideas that have never existed before. role in shaping the universe.

Micah Hanks is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of The Debrief. He can be reached by email at micah@thedebrief.org. Follow his work at miahhanks.com and in X: @MicahHanks.