![]() If WIMPs do fail to appear, the upshot will be a push for creative new solutions to the dark matter mystery-plus a chance to finally cross something off the list. Despite the fact that scientists are hunting for them in experiments in space and on Earth, including ones at the Large Hadron Collider, WIMPs have yet to show themselves, making the restrictions on their mass, interaction strength and other properties ever tighter. If dark matter were a pop star, WIMPs would be Beyoncé. “WIMPs are the canonical candidate,” says Manoj Kaplinghat, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of California, Irvine.īut a recent surge in data has cast new doubt on their existence. ![]() ![]() Short for weakly interacting massive particles, WIMPs would have about 1 to 1000 times the mass of a proton and would interact with one another only through the weak force, the force responsible for radioactive decay. The term WIMP encompasses many dark matter particles, some of which are discussed in this list. ![]()
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