Physicists suggest a new way to look for dark matter: They believe that dark matter particles annihilate into so-called dark radiation when they collide. If true, then we should be able to detect the signals from this radiation.
The majority of the mass in the universe remains unknown. Despite knowing very little about dark matter, its overall abundance is precisely measured. In other words: Physicists know it is out there, but they have not yet detected it.
It is definitely worth looking for, argues Ian Shoemaker, former postdoctoral researcher at Centre for Cosmology and Particle Physics Phenomenology (CP3), Department of Physics, Chemistry and Pharmacy, University of Southern Denmark, now at Penn State, USA.
"There is no way of predicting what we can do with dark matter, if we detect it. But it might revolutionize our world. When scientists discovered quantum mechanics, it was considered a curiosity. Today, quantum mechanics plays an important role in computers," he says.
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