Can We Detect WIMPs and Axions on Earth?

[X-43D]

Can we detect WIMPs and axions on earth?

WIMPs or/and axions are believed to be the basic constituents of dark matter.

 

[Garth]

I think a few people have been looking! But without success after some twenty or so years. The lack of laboratory verification of exotic (i.e. non-baryonic) Dark Matter particles is the most serious objection to the standard LCDM model. However, of course, the situation could dramatically change tomorrow if they should be discovered.

Garth

 

[X-43D]

The VIRGOHI21 galaxy gives strong evidence for dark matter. However if the LHC, which will collide protons at a centre-of-mass energy of 14 TeV (or maybe even beyond with better magnets) won't detect supersymmetric particles (including the Higgs Bosons), then cosmologies requiring dark matter will become suspect.

 

[Aki]

WIMPs are really hard to detect because first like the name tells us, their interactions with "normal matter" is weak. Also billions of those are passing through the Earth, and even our bodies every second, and yet they don't leave a trace.

 

[Chronos]

Efforts to detect dark matter is a very active area of research. The search for axions, a very promising candidate, is being refined to the point their detection is nearly assured in the next few years - unless of course they do not exist. Failure to detect them would be a setback for the LCDM model, and very problematic for string theory. Here is a good article:
http://www.llnl.gov/str/JanFeb04/Rosenberg.html