Dark matter is mysterious and incomprehensible to many, and scientists are no exception to this list. Despite many attempts to unravel the mystery of the phenomenon, no one has been able to reasonably explain its essence. Scientists have made little progress on the subject by experimenting with the DarkSide-50. The project is based at the University of Massachusetts, so students have been involved from the start. The huge device explores the universe for the presence of dark matter. Also taking part in the experiment are:
- The Italian National Science Foundation.
- Italy’s Gran Sasso National Laboratory.
- The National Institute of Nuclear Physics.
- Specialised organisations from numerous countries, including Russia, China, France.
The device is located in the Apennines (Italian mountains) at great depth. Professor Andrea Pocar and his master’s students created a special network, an ultra-sensitive device shaped like a balloon. A scintillation liquid is poured inside to shield it from radiation noise that could be picked up as wanted signals.
Physicists attribute black matter to gravity, but it has no physical shell. The experts aim to detect the constituent elements of this substance. A container of liquid argon was installed on the device, connected to the sphere inside. The consistency circulated through it. A special pocket of argon gas was designed to amplify the signals sent out by the black matter. The detector recorded light flashes as particles collided with argon atoms.
According to physics professor Andrea Pocar, the whole difficulty lies in differentiating the general radioactivity from the directly sent beams of dark matter. The special task of DarkSide-50 is to study the distribution of black matter particles in the cross-sectional plane of the universe as humans can observe it from our planet.
The results of the experiment and a report on the work were first made public by Pokar and his team’s report at the Los Angeles DarkMatter Symposium in 2018. It turned out that the device was indeed susceptible to a certain class of black matter particles. Data on all measurements obtained during the experiment have been published. The results achieved in the field of sensitivity to black matter signals have enabled the Pokar team to meet the expectations of the project participants and attract the attention of scientists from all over the world.