Physicists on cutting edge in search for dark matter

By CHENG YINGQI (China Daily) Updated: 2015-12-18 07:21

Carrier Long March 2-D rocket blasts off, sending into space the country's first Dark Matter Particle Explorer Satellite at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Gansu province, Dec 17, 2015. [Photo/Xinhua]

How difficult would that be? In Liu's word, it's like "trying to hear the sound of a mosquito waving its wings 30 meters away while you are sitting in the front row of a concert".

The laboratory was built deep underground to help researchers avoid as much interference as possible.

"We are close to the edge of dark matter, and we are eager to make sure it is Chinese people who give the answer to this cutting-edge scientific question," Ji Xiangdong, a professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong, was quoted as saying earlier by Xinhua News Agency.

Bi Xiaojun, a researcher from the science academy's Institute of High Energy Physics, said the decadeslong search has been narrowing the range in which to look for dark matter.

"This is like searching for a missing plane at sea. We search the energy ranges in which dark matter could possibly exist, and rule out those we already checked," he said. "Now we are working on a range with high possibilities. If we do not find dark matter here, maybe we will be lucky in the adjacent waters."

No matter what is discovered by the new instruments, the physics field is ready to embrace revolutions in the theory of dark matter, said Wu Xiangping, an astrophysicist at the National Astronomical Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

"Whether or not you believe in the existence of dark matter, the development of physics has reached a phase that it needs an update. Either a new theory or new phenomena will breathe in new life," he said.

Physics has evolved from Newton's classical mechanics to quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity.

If we were able to further extend our vision to new matter, a revolution in physics will follow.

"Now is the time," he said.