Dark Matter Just Got Darker: How New Results Are pushing Massive Dark Matter To the Brink

We do not know where 80% of the mass in our Universe comes from. This missing mass is called Dark Matter. One leading possibility is that dark matter may not be so different from ordinary matter—similar to neutrinos, but just a bit heavier. These dark matter candidates are referred to as Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (or WIMPs).

However, recent results (2024-08-24) from the LUX-Zeplin (LZ) Collaboration have further pushed these models to the limit (see https://newscenter.lbl.gov/2024/08/26.... Additional null results will likely signal the death of the WIMP hypothesis. This means that dark matter is even darker and harder to find than we previously anticipated.

In this episode, we'll explore what dark matter is, why the WIMP hypothesis is intriguing, and how experiments are coming close to putting this idea to rest.