For nearly a century, scientists have been trying to identify dark matter, the invisible material thought to account for about 85% of all matter in the universe. Its gravitational effects can be seen throughout the cosmos, yet no experiment has directly detected the substance itself. Discovering what dark matter is made of remains one of the most important unresolved problems in modern physics.
A new analysis from the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) experiment has now uncovered a particularly intriguing event. Researchers recorded a single particle interaction that has proven difficult to explain using known background signals produced by ordinary matter.
The finding is not statistically strong enough to qualify as a discovery. Even so, researchers say it represents the most compelling potential dark matter signal LZ has reported so far.
A Giant Detector Nearly a Mile Underground
LZ is an international project involving 250 scientists and engineers from 39 institutions. The experiment is managed by the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and operates nearly one mile underground at the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) in South Dakota.
