Scientists and astronomers around the world are trying to understand, sometimes with very different methods, the nature of dark matter, an element that alone makes up a good percentage of everything that exists in the universe. University of Delaware researcher Swati Singh tackled this task with the help of student Jack Manley and other collaborators from the University of Arizona and Haverford College.
However, the researcher and his colleagues use a technique that may seem strange at first glance, especially when compared to those used, for example, by astronomers to detect dark matter by making very complicated observations, even in very areas. far from the cosmos. The researcher actually uses “simple” laboratory sensors made up of optomechanical accelerometers.
With these devices, he hopes to be able to detect and amplify what is, for all intents and purposes, a very small oscillating force in normal matter, a force that makes particles come and go. This oscillating force could actually be caused by dark matter if it is made up of dark photons.
Now, if dark matter was really made up of dark photons, it would exert this force, then causing weak oscillation in normal matter, practically everywhere and on everything and it is precisely this which makes it difficult to measure the oscillation it -even.
According to Manley, it may be possible to detect it by trying to capture the force imparted by dark matter on two different materials. Indeed, if we use two objects made of different materials, the vibratory force imparted to them by the dark matter will be slightly different and this difference can be detected by an optomechanical accelerometer.
The latter is a kind of miniature “tuning fork”: with its small vibrations, it is very sensitive to any environmental disturbance. Researchers are already carrying out several experiments by bouncing light between two different surfaces, one made of silicon nitride and the other made of a fixed beryllium mirror. By measuring this reflected light, they could detect dark photons as these are two surfaces that have different properties in terms of light reflection.
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