A global team of scientists has delved deeper into understanding the complexity of dark matter, which makes up 84% of the matter in the universe. Their focus is on the “dark photon,” a theoretical particle that bridges the gap between the elusive dark field and ordinary matter.
New insights into dark matter emerge as researchers explore the ‘dark’ photon The hypothesis challenges the Standard Model hypothesis.
An international team of researchers, led by experts from the University of Adelaide, has discovered further evidence in their search for insight into the nature of dark matter.
“84% of the matter in the universe is matter, but we know very little about it,” said Anthony Thomas, a distinguished professor of physics at the University of Adelaide.
“The existence of dark matter has been firmly established through its gravitational interactions, yet its precise nature still eludes us despite the tireless efforts of physicists around the world.”
“The key to understanding this mystery may lie in the dark photon, a massive theoretical particle that could serve as a gateway between the dark field of particles and ordinary matter.”
“Our work shows that the dark photon hypothesis is preferable to the Standard Model hypothesis at 6.5 sigma, making it a proof of particle discovery.” — Professor Anthony Thomas
The dark photon and its importance
The ordinary matter that makes up us and our physical world contains a much smaller amount of dark matter: about five times as much dark matter as ordinary matter. Discovering more about dark matter is one of the biggest challenges facing physicists around the world.
A dark photon is a hypothetical hidden field particle that has been proposed as an energy carrier similar to the electromagnetic photon, but associated with dark matter. One approach is to test existing theories about dark matter, with scientists such as Professor Thomas, along with Australian Research Council (ARC) Center of Excellence members Professor Martin White, Dr Chuangang Wang and Nicholas Hunt-Smith. Dark matter particle physics is being pursued for more clues about this elusive but very important matter.
Insights from particle collisions
“In our latest study, we investigated the possible effects that a dark photon could have on the full experimental results of the deep unsteady scattering process,” Professor Thomas said.
Analyzing the byproducts of collisions of particles accelerated to very high energies provides scientists with good evidence of the structure of the subatomic world and the laws of nature that govern it.
In particle physics, the process used to explore the interior of hadrons (particularly baryons such as baryons, protons and neutrons) using electrons, muons and neutrinos is called deep inelastic scattering.
Professor Thomas said: “We used the global analysis framework of the state-of-the-art Jefferson Laboratory angular Barton distribution function, modifying the fundamental theory to allow for the possibility of a dark photon.”
“Our work shows that the dark photon hypothesis is preferable to the Standard Model hypothesis at 6.5 sigma, making it a proof of particle discovery.”
The team, which includes scientists from the University of Adelaide and colleagues at the Jefferson Laboratory in Virginia, USA, has published its findings. Journal of High Energy Physics.
Reference: “Global QCD Analysis and Dark Photons” by N. T. Hunt-Smith and W. Melnitchouk and N. Sato, AW Thomas, XG Wang, and MJ White on behalf of the Jefferson Lab Angular Momentum (JAM) Collaborative, September 15, 2023. Journal of High Energy Physics.
doi: 10.1007/JHEP09(2023)096
