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back to article MIT boffin teases space-station probe's DARK MATTER DISCOVERY

A top astroboffin has hinted that an upcoming paper will reveal a major breakthrough in dark matter research. Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer installed on the S3 truss on ISS The AMS installed on the S3 truss of the ISS MIT scientist and Nobel Laureate in Physics Samuel Ting told reporters at the American Association for the …

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  1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Trollface

    "Cosmic-ray positrons from annihilation of weakly interacting massive particles in the galaxy"

    The production of cosmic-ray positrons from the annihilation of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMP’s) is considered. Conventional supersymmetric-neutralino annihilation generally yields an unobservably small e+ flux. However, a massive WIMP (≳20 GeV) with a large annihilation cross section into a single e+e- pair produces a distinctive and observable shelf in the cosmic-ray e+ spectrum. Only Dirac neutrinos obviously generate such a feature, but it may also appear in more elaborate neutralino models. Such models are constrained by upper limits on the low-energy antiproton flux.

    This actually means that there is a non-zero chance of getting one or even e few e+/e- pairs out of WIMP annihilation, not that you necessarily get pairs as El Reg's words imply:

    WIMPs have their own antimatter partner particles. When matter and antimatter bits meet up, they destroy each other, in theory leaving behind, in the case of WIMPs, a pair of resultant particles: an electron and a positron (a positive electron).

    I foresee:

    "In a few weeks, we will be able to make an announcement"

    ...

    "For the moment, we found nothing".

    Problem, world?

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  2. Silverburn
    Boffin

    an upcoming paper will reveal a major breakthrough in dark matter research

    It's darker than we thought folks.

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    1. Jon Double Nice
      Reply Icon
      Coat

      Its the new black

      etc

      3 0
  3. Richard Wharram
    Meh

    Oooh

    I'm detecting an imminent dark matter event now.

    Bloody Guinness.

    1 0
  4. MrXavia

    The question is, can we build a starship engine that runs on dark matter?

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    1. Psyx
      Reply Icon
      Pint

      No, but we can power shark-lasers with it.

      4 1
    2. Graham Dawson Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      I'm afraid, for now, we'll have to resort to good old whale oil.

      0 0
  5. frank ly

    re. " ...mythical string physics,..."

    String theorists, the Microsoft of the physics world. They're holding us back!

    7 0
  6. Norman Hartnell
    Happy

    I hope it disproves both Dark Matter and especially String Theory, my gut feeling is that both are wrong and they are sucking huge amounts of funding into dead-ends.

    On the other hand, if they do have concrete proof I'll be happy to retract the above.

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  7. Anomalous Cowshed

    Dark matter

    Dark matter, it makes up 95% of the universe, that's absolutely enormous. To give you an idea, that's 19-20 times more dark matter than the entire observable and non-observable "normal" matter in the universe.

    And yet...bear in mind that for the time being, until proven otherwise, dark matter, all this enormity many times more extensive than the universe that we can see, exists solely as an imaginary device to compensate for holes in current theories in physics and astrophysics.

    Just like those theories which require 9 or 13 dimensions to work, or vibrating strings, it's fancy stuff, but fundamentally, it's a sign that the basic theory is flawed and incomplete, hence extraneous and inobservable elements are brought in to try to compensate. It's mathematical trickery, it ain't physics yet. But hopefully it leads to better theories and better instruments and more in-depth observations in the end.

    5 2
    1. The last doughnut
      Reply Icon
      Mushroom

      Re: Dark matter

      Yuh-huh. A bit like a flat-Earth theory. When will we know better? Possibly not in our lifetime.

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    2. Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
      Reply Icon
      Boffin

      Re: Dark matter

      But what you have to remember is that without a large amount of unseen mass, no galaxy can hang together under its own 'visible' gravity

      They would fly apart or would have a completely different rotational speed to the speed we can observe

      And never forget, we're probing the structure of space-time whether it wants to be or not

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      1. NumptyScrub
        Reply Icon

        Re: Dark matter

        quote: "But what you have to remember is that without a large amount of unseen mass, no galaxy can hang together under its own 'visible' gravity"

        I thought that was what the posited "supermassive black holes" at the centre of each galaxy were supposed to be doing? Providing the required extra gravity and mass to keep the galaxies behaving the way we can see that they behaved (back in the mists of time when the light we are seeing from them was all shiny and new).

        Or don't they fit the pattern any more? (I am not an astrophysicist)

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      2. Norman Hartnell
        Reply Icon

        Re: Dark matter

        @Boris "no galaxy can hang together under its own 'visible' gravity"

        Only under our current models - but suppose our models are incomplete and that their behaviour is wrong under some conditions, in the same way as Newton's Laws fall down under relativistic conditions?

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      3. Fibbles
        Reply Icon

        Re: Dark matter

        "But what you have to remember is that without a large amount of unseen mass, no galaxy can hang together under its own 'visible' gravity"

        I had assumed that our current models of gravity were based solely on experiments conducted within our own solar system. This is a very small set of data to try and extrapolate universal rules from. It seems to me to be very presumptuous to assume that; A) gravity is a constant across the entire universe, and that B) it works the same way at galactic scales as it does planetary ones.

        IANAP though.

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  8. Elmer Phud

    I'm feeliing old

    I'm sure WIMP was how you navigated an Atari

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    1. NumptyScrub
      Reply Icon

      Re: I'm feeliing old

      For the Atari ST, Amiga A400 and Macintosh...

      Windows - check

      Icons - check

      Menus - check

      Pointers - check

      Yep, they certainly look like WIMP based systems to me :)

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  9. Scott Pedigo
    Gimp

    If I'm not mistaken, a WIMP is accompanied by a BLIMP. Or is that seven years of college down the drain?

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  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What if...

    Our Universe is a simulation where adjustments are constantly made from outside to stop it flying apart?

    How would that affect the calculations, and could such adjustments be detect"!$! <NO CARRIER>

    1 0
  11. jukejoint
    WTF?

    Whose ring do I kiss?

    "But as for string theory - it cannot be proved or disproved, that's the issue with it."

    I now comprehend. It is a religion then?

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