Scientists agree on new group to search for dark matter

From Cosmos, 21 December 2023:

“Where did you come from, where did you go, where did you come from, neutrino?”

This 1880’s folk tune – Cotton-Eyed Joe – now popular with line dancers, could well have been adapted to be the theme of last week’s gathering of scientists from around the world who gathered in Sydney to grapple with the challenge of how to tell what direction a theoretical dark matter particle has come from.

That this is the topic of an entire gathering of dark matter scientists gives some clue as to the importance of this question. A decision from the conference could turbo-charge the hunt for the answer.

The reason directionality is such a focus is because it is currently the most promising way to tell the difference between a dark matter particle – also known as a Weakly Interacting Massive Particle, or WIMP – and a neutrino, which is similar in almost every way. Read more.