It ’s consider most of the thing in the universe is invisible . This is the legendary dark issue , a funny substance whose gravitational effects we can see in galaxies but we are yet to support in labs . A new marriage proposal accept a peculiar novel approach to this search – perhaps dark issue can be blot using a billion tiny pendulums .
The logical thinking behind the improper idea has to do with the size of it of dark matter particles . Their proposed range is huge , from something much lighter than an electron to black hole ten of fourth dimension the mass of our Sun . The pendulum will help examine a middle realm of dingy affair particles that are roughly the size of a grain of salt .
While dismal matter does n’t interact with light , its mass pulls things in with its sombreness . That means a corpuscle of glowering thing fly past a pendulum would give it a little pull . Now , the pull is very humble and a single pendulum would be influenced by environmental racket , so it would get lose . fortuitously there ’s strength ( and a root ) in numbers .
The squad suggest the purpose of a billion tiny pendulums . The transition of drear subject particles should then become apparent when all these move are look at together . As describe inPhysical Review D , the blueprint they have in mind will be tender to mass between 1/5,000th of a milligram and a few milligrams .
Current dark affair detectors are looking for much smaller particles and focalise on very rare interactions that might exist between regular matter and benighted subject . This setup instead only cares about the gravitative pull , so the sole unknown is the mass of the dark topic speck .
If dark matter is found with this method , it would be amazing . If it is n’t , we can confidently remove a with child glob of potential masses from the performing playing field . Some preliminary tests with this general approachhave already been conducted .
The technology for this might fall from the smartphone diligence and , if so , could have applications beyond drab matter . It could be used to canvas phenomena like remote seismal undulation as well as some coolheaded atom aperient detections .
