A wimp may hold secret of the Universe
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Your support makes all the difference.AN EXPERIMENT is underway to find the secret of the Universe. And the answer could be a wimp down a Yorkshire saltmine.
The wimp in question is not a downwardly mobile yuppy but an as yet undiscovered form of 'exotic' matter that could account for 95 per cent of the material making up the Universe. Scientists know that the stars and galaxies we see in the heavens account for only a small proportion of the material actually present. They are, however, divided on the form taken by this mysterious 'dark matter' which cannot be seen.
Some researchers believe that it must consist of sub-atomic particles so abundant yet so inert that millions pass straight through us every second. They have termed them weakly interacting sub-atomic particles - wimps for short.
The theory is that particles are impossible to detect at the surface because they are so weakly interacting and are drowned by the background 'noise' from other sub-atomic particles, essentially those generated by cosmic rays from space. One solution is to bury a dark-matter detector 1,100 metres underground, because wimps, unlike cosmic rays, are not absorbed by surface rocks. The site chosen for the underground laboratory is a working saltmine at Boulby near Whitby in Yorkshire owned by Cleveland Potash Ltd.
Professor Peter Smith of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory at Didcot said that a prototype detector began the wimp search this summer, but he stressed that the instrument would need further refinements to make it more sensitive: 'You can't suddenly make a dark-matter detector, you have to work down to it.'
The instrument lies in a tank of pure water to shield it from the natural radioactivity of the surrounding rock. Professor Smith says that if wimps exist, the signal from the detector will be unmistakable: 'It's like the wind hitting you in the face. You can't see it, but you feel the recoil.'
He said that it might be necessary to have more sensitive detectors running for two to three years before wimps were found. But, he added, if wimps were more reactive than theorists had postulated, the particles could be detected next year.
How much does the Universe weigh? Sunday Review
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