On the Existence of Low-Mass Dark Matter and its Direct Detection
On the Existence of Low-Mass Dark Matter and its Direct Detection
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DOI：
10.1038/srep08058
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发表时间：
2015-01-27
影响因子：
4.6
通讯作者：
Ulbricht, Hendrik
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Bateman, James;McHardy, Ian;Ulbricht, Hendrik
暗物质（DM）是一种难以捉摸的物质形式，它被假定通过对恒星和星系的引力效应，周围光的引力透镜以及宇宙微波背景（CMB）的印记来解释天文观测。这一间接证据表明，DM占我们宇宙中所有物质的84.5%，但迄今为止，它已经回避了所有直接探测的尝试，留下了这样的确认和随之而来的发现它的性质是现代物理学中最大的挑战之一。在这里，我们提出了一种新形式的低质量DM chi，到目前为止，所有实验都没有发现。虽然它的大相互作用强度起初似乎不太可能，但粒子物理学和宇宙学/天文学观测的约束都不足以排除这种类型的DM，它激发了我们提出通过光学力学技术直接检测的建议，该技术应该很快就能实现，即通过悬浮的介观粒子的精确位置测量，该粒子将被与chi粒子的弹性碰撞所扰动。我们表明，最近提出的纳米粒子物质波干涉仪，最初设想的量子叠加原理的测试，是敏感的这些碰撞，太。
Dark Matter (DM) is an elusive form of matter which has been postulated to explain astronomical observations through its gravitational effects on stars and galaxies, gravitational lensing of light around these, and through its imprint on the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). This indirect evidence implies that DM accounts for as much as 84.5% of all matter in our Universe, yet it has so far evaded all attempts at direct detection, leaving such confirmation and the consequent discovery of its nature as one of the biggest challenges in modern physics. Here we present a novel form of low-mass DM chi that would have been missed by all experiments so far. While its large interaction strength might at first seem unlikely, neither constraints from particle physics nor cosmological/astronomical observations are sufficient to rule out this type of DM, and it motivates our proposal for direct detection by optomechanics technology which should soon be within reach, namely, through the precise position measurement of a levitated mesoscopic particle which will be perturbed by elastic collisions with chi particles. We show that a recently proposed nanoparticle matter-wave interferometer, originally conceived for tests of the quantum superposition principle, is sensitive to these collisions, too.