Located one kilometre underground in the Stawell Gold Mine, the first dark matter laboratory in the Southern Hemisphere is preparing to join the global quest to understand the nature of dark matter and unlock the secrets of our universe.
Officially unveiled today, the Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory (SUPL) will be the new epicentre of dark matter research in Australia.
[...] With Stage 1 now complete, the lab is ready to host the experiment known as SABRE South to be installed over the coming months, which aims to directly detect dark matter.
SABRE South will run in conjunction with the complementary SABRE experiment taking place in Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso, Italy. These experiments are designed to detect Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs), one of the likely forms for dark matter particles.
[...] The Stawell laboratory will be managed by SUPL Ltd., which is co-owned by the University of Melbourne, ANSTO, the Australian National University, Swinburne University of Technology and the University of Adelaide.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2022, @02:26PM
Somehow this would be sexier if we could do it on Mars. Is there any way we can do this on Mars using the Space Force? With superhumans?
(Score: 2) by sgleysti on Monday August 29 2022, @04:04PM (12 children)
Glad to see this is happening. This experiment uses the same type of detector as the DAMA/LIBRE experiment, which has claimed to detect dark matter for the last 20 years. However, the group running the DAMA/LIBRE experiement has never published their data or analysis methodology. Since this dark matter detection technique looks for yearly variation in detection rate as the earth orbits the sun (going different speeds through a hypothesized dark matter halo), running the SABRE experiment in the southern hemisphere is a very good way to check for measurement effects that come from seasonal variation in conditions around the detector and not from dark matter.
Here's a good article on the issues with DAMA and other attempts to independently replicate the experiment: https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2021/03/04/goodbye-damalibra-worlds-most-controversial-dark-matter-experiment-fails-replication-test/ [forbes.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Gaaark on Monday August 29 2022, @04:57PM (8 children)
"So! We found proof, but need more money (and more and more money) before we can publish our data! Send more! No, not a scam, no...no no no! Money."
Spend more money on chasing that dark matter ghost when there are dark children starving! OH, THE HUMANITY!
Sigh. :(
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 4, Informative) by sgleysti on Monday August 29 2022, @05:34PM (3 children)
It's not that. The DAMA people are saying something more like, "look we found Dark Matter. really, we did. trust us." Other scientists ask to analyze their data and methods in more detail, and they won't cough up the info. So these other scientists, being skeptical of the DAMA results, go out and do the same experiment themselves so they have direct access to the data and can use and disclose rigorous methods for analyzing it. So far ANAIS [unizar.es] and COSINE-100 [yale.edu] are doing this, and their results are not consistent with DAMA. They're continuing to gather more data to improve the strength of the results.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2022, @07:04PM (2 children)
Well there's the problem- people forget that toilets flush the other way round Down Under! Quarks spin backwards too. Sheesh.
(Score: 3, Funny) by sgleysti on Monday August 29 2022, @07:39PM (1 child)
Accurate and correct.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2022, @09:02PM
˙ǝʇᴉɐɯ ᴉɐp,פ ¡ʎǝʞᴉɹƆ
(Score: 5, Informative) by sgleysti on Monday August 29 2022, @05:46PM (3 children)
It's not about the money, at least not directly. The physicists have multiple, solid, independent strands of evidence pointing toward the existence of dark matter, and they just want to figure out what the fuck it's made of. If there were a fast and inexpensive way to do this, I think they'd be ecstatic. Unfortunately, the stuff is not easy to detect. And to some extent, they may have been barking up the wrong tree with the hypothesis of weakly interacting massive particles, which was partly fueled by hype around supersymmetry, a theory that has not panned out. If dark matter only interacts gravitationally (e.g. not through the strong, weak, or electromagnetic forces), then a lot of the existing detection strategies may never see it. If dark matter particles scatter off atomic nuclei with a smaller cross section than neutrinos, then many existing detectors won't see it either.
Basically, they have excellent, solid, reasons to think dark matter exists. They're trying their best to look for it using reasonable detection strategies that are possible to build (important, lol), and so far nothing. It's a hard problem. I forget the source, but I've read that people are starting to get more creative about different ways of detecting dark matter. Hopefully that results in a lot of new, clever experiments that don't cost too much or take too long and that one of them is eventually successful.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2022, @07:04PM
This lab will be useful for other high energy physics experiments as well (proton decay, neutron detection, etc.).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2022, @11:31PM (1 child)
I'm pretty sure Dark Matter is made of slowed down N-rays.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 30 2022, @12:43AM
Thanks - will check it out.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday August 30 2022, @08:23AM
Ooops, they've assumed something about the dark matter's own rotation curve!
Assuming it's gravitationally attracted to the centre of mass at the centre of the galaxy, dark matter is most likely to be approaching, or receding, from basically the north pole (deviant by only about 7 degrees - this is why the milky way cuts the sky in two, we're fairly perpendicular to it), and therefore there's no reason to expect much seasonal variation at all. And because we don't know the rotation curve of dark matter halos, we wouldn't even know what sign it would take either.
This is great science - it doesn't matter what result they get - they can always say "it confirms what we know about WIMPS" because there's no way the experiment can contradict anthing. (However, anything they do get must be reproducable, but they mustn't be allowed to extrapolate from a single data point.)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday August 30 2022, @08:29AM (1 child)
No, our ecliptic is highly tilted to the galactic disk, and the earth is tilted relative to that plane. The north pole is only 7 degrees away from pointing exactly along the earth's orbit of the galactic centre, which is assumed to be (a) low eccentricity; and (b) also followed (but in an unknown direction) by dark matter. If they are using that different speeds claim as an assumption, then they are basing their deductions on a falsity.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday August 30 2022, @08:30AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves