https://physicsworld.com/a/looking-for-dark-matter-differently/
Dark matter may be more profuse than previously thought, physicists had been unable to reduce noise in qubits and they think maybe it is because dark matter is hitting those qubits and making noise that reduces the usability of them. But now they think it may be able to use that to advantage directly detecting the presence of dark matter for the first time.
We will see if this technique bears fruit. Not sure how long that will take however.
@sonhouse
This is an idea that has been bobbing around for a while:
December 2022:
https://news.fnal.gov/2022/12/detecting-dark-matter-with-quantum-computers/
April 2021:
https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.126.141302
2018:
https://www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/looking-for-dark-matter-using-quantum-technology?language_content_entity=und
Unfortunately, none of these proposed experiments have any prospect of falsifying the existence of dark matter, which has become the modern-day version of the aethereal aether in my opinion. If no dark matter is detected, it will simply be argued that dark matter isn't behind the noise in qubits after all, or it is just really, really diffuse, or the experiments weren't sensitive enough, or something.
But yeah, the experiments are worth doing. Who knows? Maybe some aethereal aether will finally be observed in the laboratory.
The biggest problem with detecting dark matter is that no-one knows what it is. There are lots of weird effects we observe out in distant space (such as the rotation speed of our galaxy) that only makes sense if something with mass that both isn't emitting any light and isn't blocking light is out there.
The problem is - that's all we have.
It is like I went up to you and said, "I've lost something. Can you help me find it?" and you go, "Sure. What have you lost?" And I say, "I don't know. And I'm also not entirely sure I've even lost it."
@sonhouse saidI wouldn't even hazard to guess.
@Soothfast
What I wonder is what is next assuming they DO discover dark matter?
One of the more novel hypotheses I've run across about where dark matter may be hiding is discussed in this article:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/in-a-dark-dimension-physicists-search-for-missing-matter-20240201/
So dark matter is confined to one of the "hidden" spatial dimensions of string theory, and not only that, it is made up of many kinds of massive gravitons.
@wyndavies
🙂, there is that. So they have to make educated guesses as to what kind of interactions dark matter might take and if they hit gold they may get the Nobel prize in physics.
Personally I guess there is at least one more force we are unaware of that makes dark matter possible but of course that is pure conjecture.
It's a big universe out there and there is a lot we don't understand and the latest findings of the James Webb scope has just muddied the waters with discovery of hundreds of galaxies too evolved too far back in time to be their according to our present knowledge of how the universe works which is a good thing, sets scientists back on their heels trying to make sense of it all, like the "Hubble Tension' where the expansion rate of the universe has two different numbers a significant distance apart giving two different answers as to how fast the universe is expanding, depends on how you measure it, 10% difference they can't account for. THAT has them digging deeper into our misunderstanding of what the universe is all about.
My own guess about the galaxies that should not be there is if the multiverse concept is correct, those galaxies could have been an incursion into OUR bubble universe by another one outside our universe bumping into ours and exchanging mass and of course I know full well that is just conjecture.