'Cosmic radio' detector could discover dark matter within 15 years
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Re: 'Cosmic radio' detector could discover dark matter within 15 years
#2> The AQ is designed so its frequency can be transmitted into space, a frequency that would match with the axion. When it identifies and 'tunes in' to that frequency, it will emit very small amounts of light. AQ operates at the highest terahertz frequencies, which many researchers believe to be the most promising place to look for axions.
Can someone explain this using an analogy that makes sense?
Re: 'Cosmic radio' detector could discover dark matter within 15 years
#3> The AQ is designed so its frequency can be transmitted into space, a frequency that would match with the axion. When it identifies and 'tunes in' to that frequency, it will emit very small amounts of light. AQ operates at the highest terahertz frequencies, which many researchers believe to be the most promising place to look for axions. Can someone explain this using an analogy that makes sense?
Sympathetic resonance. Two guitars in a room, pluck the A string of one, the other A string will vibrate. “Spooky action at a distance”
Re: 'Cosmic radio' detector could discover dark matter within 15 years
#4how long would it go without finding dark matter before physicists would get worried?
Re: 'Cosmic radio' detector could discover dark matter within 15 years
#5> The AQ is designed so its frequency can be transmitted into space, a frequency that would match with the axion. When it identifies and 'tunes in' to that frequency, it will emit very small amounts of light. AQ operates at the highest terahertz frequencies, which many researchers believe to be the most promising place to look for axions. Can someone explain this using an analogy that makes sense?
Sympathetic resonance. Two guitars in a room, pluck the A string of one, the other A string will vibrate. “Spooky action at a distance”
If that is what they wanted to say they did a very bad job. And spooky action at a distance is a term related to quantum entanglement, which has probably nothing to do with the phenomenon they tried to describe here.
Re: 'Cosmic radio' detector could discover dark matter within 15 years
#6how long would it go without finding dark matter before physicists would get worried?
There are appealing theoretical reasons to think an axion exists [strong-cp]; there are appealing theoretical reasons to think an axion does not exist [chiral]. What this device can do is explore. They may come up empty because dark matter is not axions; they may come up empty because dark matter is axions but the physical parameters are surprising. But people agree that if axions comprise any sizeable fraction of dark matter then its parameters should be between this and that, and this device can find it there.
[strong-cp] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong_CP_problem [chiral] https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.02024
Re: 'Cosmic radio' detector could discover dark matter within 15 years
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sympathetic resonance. Two guitars in a room, pluck the A string of one, the other A string will vibrate. “Spooky action at a distance”
If that is what they wanted to say they did a very bad job. And spooky action at a distance is a term related to quantum entanglement, which has probably nothing to do with the phenomenon they tried to describe here.
You're right; this is nothing to do with spooky action at a distance.
But sympathetic response, or resonance, is how this device would work---just like a radio. Axions couple to electromagnetism; by listening in on different frequencies we can see if there is any "cosmic signal being broadcast" (meaning: axions suffusing the galaxy); the frequency of the signal corresponds to the mass of the axion.
In that sense, the search for resonances is a classic approach in particle physics; various particles were discovered by finding increased signals at particular collision energies. What's different here is that it isn't a resonance in a collision cross-section but an axion --> electromagnetism conversion.
Re: 'Cosmic radio' detector could discover dark matter within 15 years
#8how long would it go without finding dark matter before physicists would get worried?
They'll just do what they've done for the past twenty years.
Adjust the theory to make it darker, lighter and more nebulous.
The end station of dark matter is that "we know it's real because computer models but due to a fluke there's no dark matter in the solar system so we can't detect it".
Re: 'Cosmic radio' detector could discover dark matter within 15 years
#9how long would it go without finding dark matter before physicists would get worried?
I would guess, "It would take a very long time--possibly forever--because scientists don't typically become 'worried' by perceived shortfalls in theories, rather they become excited." Often, that excitement finds an outlet through modifications to the theory or to wholesale alternative theories. In the case of Dark Matter, there's no shortage of proposals to overturn Dark Matter. It seems like there's a new one on HN every day. But, "the more's the merrier", I say! If you ask me (nobody did), they're all welcome. The only catch is, they have got to surpass Dark Matter on all of the many independent lines of observational evidence supporting the theory of Dark Matter, yet in my limited experience they almost never do.
Re: 'Cosmic radio' detector could discover dark matter within 15 years
#10What is the proposed cost of this exploration? Is this more big dollar physics? Will the device see anything if the conjecture is wrong?
I have gotten skeptical of these “could be amazing” researches - I suspect success in academia is PR and funding as much as actual good ideas and it’s hard for an outsider to know the difference (or care?).