Spying On Dark Matter With An Axion Radio

Axions are currently one of the promising candidates for dark matter. Physicists are proposing we could maybe track them down with an axion plasma radio.

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As most of you probably know, dark matter probably exists. But it is still very dark and mysterious. Considering the amount of effort that is being put into discovering what dark matter is exactly there are already a bit too many candidates for dark matter. Truly an unpleasant situation.

Nonetheless, some of the candidates for dark matter seem to be more promising than others. And one of the best candidates are axions. Axions are hypothetical particles or more like particle waves predicted back in 1977. Lately the effort to discover them has been getting stronger but axions are for the most part still resisting. (Though, we may have discovered them recently) Thus scientists are using truly extraordinary means to try to detect them.

Matthew Lawson from the Stockholm Universitet and his colleagues say that searching for axions is like tuning a ghostly axion radio. It is about tuning the antennas of our devices to the correct frequency. Well, if axions exist. And if physicists succeed tuning their “radios” they will not hear a beautiful symphony but the highly awaited melody of dark matter.

Lawson and his colleagues say that the key lies in the fact that axions which emit a weak electric field while inside a magnetic field. This field should be detectable with oscillations in plasma which will intensify the axion's signals. When we find the correct frequency. And in comparison with other similar experiments, the plasma could be of almost any size. And the larger the volume of used plasma the stronger the detected signal should be.

This is a completely new approach to finding dark matter. With it physicists could search for axions intensely. And as already mentioned, axions are one of the best possible candidates for dark matter at the time being. It also gives us the chance to build truly large experiments that would be much larger than anything we currently have.

Now to talk more practically for a second. How to make an axion radio? Lawson and the other scientists suggest using a system of very thin wires thinner than even human hair. It may be possible to tune the axion radios frequency with them. You just put them inside of a powerful magnet just like the one inside of MRIs.

Sources:

• https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.123.141802
• https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/10/191009093942.htm

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