The Elephant in the Universe: 100-year search for dark matter Author: Govert Schilling Headline: Particle Physics and Simulations Hunt for the Elusive WIMP
Update: 2025-09-07
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The Elephant in the Universe: 100-year search for dark matter Author: Govert Schilling
Headline: Particle Physics and Simulations Hunt for the Elusive WIMP
The concept of cold dark matter, championed by cosmologists like Jim Peebles, describes particles that interact primarily through gravity but lack electrical charge, meaning they don't interact with light, magnetism, or strong nuclear forces. Their only potential interaction is a rare "bump" into an atomic nucleus via the weak nuclear force. This led to the theoretical candidate known as the Weakly Interacting Massive Particle (WIMP). Experiments at facilities like CERN's Large Hadron Collider, with its massive underground detectors, attempt to create and detect these WIMPsthrough high-energy particle collisions, though none have been found yet. Complementing this, computer simulations, such as IllustrisTNG, successfully model the universe's evolution from its smooth beginning to its current clumpiness, but only when incorporating cold dark matter with specific properties, guiding the ongoing search.
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