New Analysis Suggests Potential Dark โMatter Signalโข from Fermi Telescope Data
Observationsโค of galactic movement and the cosmic microwave background reveal that approximately 85% of the matter in the universe is “dark,” meaning it doesn’t interact with light and isn’t โคcomposed of known elementary particles. Physicists have been searching for the constituents of this dark matter, โproposing various hypothetical particles. Recent analysis of data from โthe Fermi Spaceโ Telescope may offer a new clue.
An astrophysicist, Tomonori totani of the โUniversity โคof Tokyo, โฃhas identified a potentialโค signal consistent with dark matter in Fermi’s data. The analysis โsuggests the darkโข matter particlesโค couldโข have a mass around 500 times that of a proton. This mass aligns with a leading dark matter candidate:โฃ weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs).
WIMPs are theorized to annihilate each other uponโข collision, releasing high-energy gamma radiation. Previous observations withโ Fermi in โฃ2008 detected โคgamma radiation fromโข the center of the Milky Way that initially appeared toโข be this annihilationโ signal. Though, researchers determinedโ this radiation could also โขbe attributed โคto numerous neutron stars present in the galactic center.
To address this ambiguity, Totani focused his analysis on regions of the sky with fewerโค suspected neutron stars -โฃ specifically, the halo of the Milky Way, away from the โคgalactic centerโข and the dense star disk. Analyzing 15 yearsโ of data โfrom Fermi’s LAT telescope, โhe found a meaningful excess of gamma radiation between โ2 and 200โ giga-electron volts, peaking atโ 20โฃ giga-electronโ volts.This energy distribution matches predictions for the gamma radiation โproduced by WIMP โคannihilation.
Totani describes theโ finding as “possible” โฃevidence for dark matter, โand potentially theโ first direct observationโฃ of it. Confirmation would โalso indicate that dark matter is comprised โof particles beyond those described โin the Standard Model of particle physics.
However, Totani emphasizes the need for independentโ verification โคof his results by other research groups.Even withโ confirmation, โฃthe source of the โgamma โฃexcess โmust be definitively established, as unkown astrophysical phenomena could potentially be responsible.He suggests further investigation by searching for similar gamma radiationโข patterns in dwarf galaxies, where different conditions could โขhelp isolate a true โdark matterโข signal.
