Astrophysicists believe that about 80 percent of the substance of our universe is made up of mysterious "dark matter" that can't be perceived by human senses or scientific instruments.

"Dark matter has not yet been detected in a lab. We infer about it from astronomical observations," said Mikhail Medvedev, professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Kansas, who has just published breakthrough research on dark matter that merited the cover of Physical Review Letters.

Medvedev proposes a novel model of dark matter, dubbed "flavor-mixed multicomponent dark matter."

"Dark matter is some unknown matter, most likely a new elementary particle or particles beyond the Standard Model," Medvedev said. "It has never been observed directly, but it reveals itself via gravity it produces in the universe. There are numerous experiments around the world aimed at finding it directly."

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