Dark matter detection data analysis points to the solar axon
According to a report on the US "Science" magazine website on the 17th, the XENON cooperation group, which aims to search for dark matter traces, reported in an online seminar today. They analyzed the data collected by the XENON1T dark matter detector and found dozens of peculiar events. , Analysis found that these signals are most likely to be "cue" of the "axons" emitted by the sun. Although this conclusion is not enough to claim as a "discovery", it is still worthy of attention.
It is believed that dark matter occupies 85% of the mass of the universe. Although it does not emit light or absorb light, its gravitational influence on stars and galaxies provides strong indirect evidence for it. Since 2006, the XENON team has built a series of detectors to search for dark matter at the Gran Sasso National Laboratory in Italy. Scientists once assumed that dark matter particles are "weakly interacting heavy particles (https://www.purse2021.com)", but they have not obtained convincing evidence. But the detector can distinguish lighter particles, which will collide with electrons in the liquid xenon atoms in the detector and bounce off.
The latest XENON1T detector has been in operation from the second half of 2016 to 2018. Evan Shockley, a physicist at the University of Chicago, said at the seminar that they had seen 285 such electronic recoil events in a specific energy region—previously only 232 were predicted. The extra 53 events have a confidence of 3.5 sigma. Although they are not enough to claim a "discovery" (the confidence must be up to 5 sigma), they are enough to attract people's attention.
Researchers said that detailed analysis showed that the "man behind the scenes" behind the latest incident may be a hypothetical particle called "axion." Scientists proposed axons to solve problems in the theory of strong nuclear force, which is also considered a candidate for dark matter particles. The study pointed out that in order to explain the signal in XENON1T, these axons must weigh several thousand electron volts. Such heavy axons cannot explain dark matter, but may come from nuclear interactions within the sun.
Shockley said that redundant events may also be produced by neutrinos that are more magnetic than the standard theory of particle physics predicts. In addition, the signal may also come from tritium contamination in the detector. Tritium is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, which decays by "spitting out" electrons, producing "noise".
Scientists may soon be able to reveal the truth! The XENON team is commissioning a larger detector XENONnT; other teams are using the same size liquid xenon detector for research. If these detectors also see certain events, it will greatly increase the probability of discovering new particles.
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