LHC Sees No Dark Photons

Dark matter is aptly named. It emits no light and interacts with visible matter only via gravity. But dark matter might be only the tip of an invisible universe of unknown forces. This possibility has led to a hunt for “dark photons.” Such photons are analogous to ordinary photons, but they are exchanged among particles of dark matter, and according to some models, they may have mass. Evidence for dark photons would be a game changer, revealing that dark matter leads a secret life that is much more complex than assumed by most theories. The latest search for dark photons at the Large Hadron Collider, however, has come up empty. Nevertheless, the results narrow the range of possible values for the strength of the coupling between dark photons and electromagnetic fields.