LinkNotes: A Prototype Detector for Dark Matter

Prototype Developed To Detect Dark Matter

ScienceDaily (Sep. 25, 2009) — A team of researchers from the University of Zaragoza (UNIZAR) and the Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale (IAS, in France) has developed a "scintillating bolometer" -- a device that the scientists will use in efforts to detect the dark matter of the universe, and which has been tested at the Canfranc Underground Laboratory in Huesca, Spain.

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Image comment: This is the BGO scintillator crystal (right, blue) and germanium disc (left)
Image credits: IAS / SINC

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Image comment: This is the experimental arrangement in the Underground Laboratory Canfranc
Image credits: IAS / SINC

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Dark matter

In astronomy and cosmology, dark matter is hypothetical matter that is undetectable by its emitted radiation, but whose presence can be inferred from gravitational effects on visible matter.^[1] According to present observations of structures larger than galaxies, as well as Big Bang cosmology, dark matter and dark energy could account for the vast majority of the mass in the observable universe.

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Strong gravitational lensing as observed by the Hubble Space Telescope in Abell 1689 indicates the presence of dark matter

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3D map of the large-scale distribution of dark matter, reconstructed from measurements of weak gravitational lensing with the Hubble Space Telescope.

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Estimated distribution of dark matter and dark energy in the universe

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Bolometer

A bolometer is a device for measuring the energy of incident electromagnetic radiation. It was invented in 1878 by the American astronomer Samuel Pierpont Langley.

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