An experiment in the United Kingdom has failed to find evidence of a speck meant to explain most of the population ’s mass . But the search is n’t over .
When cosmologists find the way the population expands , they find that present - twenty-four hours theories of thing ca n’t excuse most of the population ’s vigor . They call the unknown energy “ morose Energy Department , ” and theorist have tried to explain it by declare oneself unexplored particles and corresponding fields . Experiments have break down to find evidence of such particle , but in physics , that ’s not inevitably a bad thing .
“ We have n’t exclude everything , ” Clare Burrage , an associate professor in physics and astronomy at the University of Nottingham in the UK and one of the study source , tell Gizmodo . “ There ’s still a windowpane of parameter that ’s arguably more interesting . ”
A simulation of a galaxy forming under a modified theory of gravity featuring chameleons.Graphic: Christian Arnold/Baojiu Li/Durham University (Phys.org)
Two 1998 observationsof the most distant supernovae let on that not only is the universe expanding , but the expansion is accelerating . Explaining this enlargement required a new , unexplored force driving matter asunder , which physicists call dark DOE . reckoning since then have divulge that obscure free energy should make up more than two - third base of the universe ’s total mass and energy — but we do n’t screw what the source of the energy actually is .
Physicists understand the force between even matter in the universe , like the electromagnetic force , as force field ( where you are in the line of business determines how powerfully you feel the force ) with corresponding subatomic particle ( you could understand the interactions between two matter particles as the exchange of military unit mote ) . So , some theories of dark zip offer that it ’s a new kind of force , too weak to be observe on Earth , with a corresponding mote ; these proposed corpuscle have name like the chameleon or the symmteron . Recentcomputational evidencehas shown that the theory of chameleons , so named because their properties depend on the surround they live in , are a viable theory of dark energy .
Researchers work in the United Kingdom had previously proposed that if these forces existed , they might be detectable using a special sort of experiment akin to Galileo ’s dropping two balls from the top of theleaning tower of Pisa . The researchers placed an almond - sized aluminum ball , attached to a retinal rod so it can move around , in an extreme vacuum cleaner chamber . Then , they pumped and immobilize a pulse of inhuman rubidium atoms , then released the trap . Using a detection dodge predict atom interferometery , based on shining peculiarly twist lasers onto the atoms , the investigator measured how the speck moved toward the Al ball declare in various positions , looking for the slightest difference in acceleration from theoretic expectations .
The experiment found that if Chamaeleon or symmetron particles exist , their effect are too slight to be measured by this frame-up , according tothe paperpublished in Physical Review Letters . This variety of void result is important — it tells theorist and experimentalists tolook elsewherefor a dark energy - explain particle .
These event confirm a similar set of results from a 2017 newspaper from a squad of scientistshere in the United States , though with a slightly different detection scheme . This paper “ is of very high lineament and support our early limit , ” Holger Müller , leader of the 2017 efforts from the University of California , Berkeley , who was not involved in the new study , told Gizmodo in an email . “ They use interchangeable , but not identical techniques , so this is a meaningful strengthening of the observational data . I should give full credit that it was a theoretic paper by Burrage , Copeland and Hinds , ” three of the scientist on this new paper , “ that inspired us to look at chameleon . ”
And it ’s important to keep seem . These experiments pull up stakes room for some iterations of Chamaeleon to live , Burrage told Gizmodo . It ’s now a matter of increasing the sensitivity of these experiments .
AstrophysicsDark energyDark matterPhysicsScience
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