Superconductors could detect superlight dark matter
Tuesday, February 9, 2016 - 10:02
in Astronomy & Space
(Phys.org)—Many experiments are currently searching for dark matter—the invisible substance that scientists know exists only from its gravitational effect on stars, galaxies, and other objects made of ordinary matter. On Earth, scientists are using particle accelerators such as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) to search for dark matter, while keeping an eye out elsewhere with detectors in space and even detectors located thousands of feet underground. Although scientists have covered all of their bases location-wise, these detectors may not be sensitive enough to detect dark matter if the mass of the dark matter is less than about 10 GeV (10 billion electron volts).