Physicists narrow the mass range for proposed dark matter particle

摘要

Bit by bit, physicists are winnowing down the potential masses for hypothetical particles called axions. If they exist, the subatomic particles could make up dark matter, a mysterious source of mass that pervades the universe. Axions are expected to be very lightweight - between a millionth and a thousandth of an electron volt. But there were no sightings of the particles in a mass range between 2.81 millionths and 3.31 millionths of an electron volt, physicists with the ADMX experiment report in the March 13 Physical Review Letters.