Talk:Weakly interacting massive particle: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 16:47, 18 December 2009

Latest revision as of 13:43, 2 February 2024

(18 intermediate revisions by 13 users not shown)

Line 1:

{{physicsWikiProject banner shell|class=C|importance=Mid}}

{{astronomy|class=CWikiProject Physics|importance=midMid}}

{{WikiProject Astronomy|importance=mid}}

}}

==hypen in the name==

This page was moved to "Weakly-interacting massive particles" two months ago under the reason that there was a hyphen missing in the compound modifier "weakly interacting". However, no hyphen is needed in compound modifiers after adverbs that end in -ly. Someone with high enough privileges, please move the page back to "Weakly interacting massive particles".

==name==

This presents an interesting puzzling for [[:naming conventions|naming conventions]]: if something like "WIMP" is ''almost always'' referred to as such, should it be listed under its acronym or under its full title? I have no very strong views about this case particular case, but I lean toward moving it to the full title. This particular page would be a perfect instance for that, because the acronym has two different uses; therefore, [[:WIMP|WIMP]] could redirect to those other two pages. --[[User:LMS|LMS]]

Line 72 ⟶ 78:

:* Agreed, for something hypothetical, it sure is presented as "fact." WIMPs are little better than other pseudoscience. I might also add, how does one expect to detect WIMPs via neutrinos? Neutrino detectors would generally detect ALL neutrinos, yes? So, if detecting "neutrinos from inside the earth," how do we know the neutrinos weren't A) produced outside the Earth, say by the sun... B) Produced in the Earth by a process OTHER than interacting WIMPs, etc. Likewise, when detecting solar neutrinos, how can we differentiate between neutrinos produced through solar fusion and through interactions with WIMPs? Are scientists biases beginning to show through in their act of telling us what they imagine they see in the data, rather than looking at the data itself and realizing it tells them noting even remotely close to what they think it will? Heck, we have enough problems detecting neutrinos in the first place. Certainly not enough based on initial theories of solar fusion, so scientists invented that problem away by speculating neutrinos "change flavors." Bollocks! Why must we keep putting falsification of bad models further and further away from our ability to TEST hypotheses? Gotta' wonder. Might want to clean up the article quite a bit, including clarifying exactly how measuring neutrinos tells us ANYTHING about where they came from or what produced them, let alone tell us anything about interactions prior tot he neutrino arriving at the detector or anything prior to the neutrino's emission from its source. From the description in the article, WIMPs seem like horrifically bad science used to defend horrifically bad science ([[Dark Matter]]), used to defend horrifically bad science ([[Big Bang]]), coming mostly from a horrifically bad oversight (redshift =/= distance for every instance of redshift; IE, Halton Arp has demonstrated relations, though GOOD but mostly ignored science, between objects of significantly different redshift, meaning that the redshift is intrinsic NOT cosmological, in those instances!) and thus a wrong assumption, which is unfortunately the basis of just about every modern construct in cosmology (leading to bad estimates of distance, absolute luminosity, mass, then onward to dark matter, WIMPs, MACHOs, etc.). Anywho. [[User:Mgmirkin|Mgmirkin]] 00:19, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

:::Well, you can assume that nobody ever thought of any of these questions before, and go on about what a bunch of deluded clods astrophysicists are - or you could get reading. Whichever one you prefer. Here are some papers to get you started: [http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/0609257 indirect detection], [http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ex/0312045 solar neutrino experiments]. A hint- compare the energy scales for solar neutrinos and neutrinos from WIMP annihilations. There are two big things you can do to help improve these articles: add references to relevant papers you come across in your reading, and add the <nowiki>{{fact}}</nowiki> tag to articles in places where a citation is needed. If you would like help finding papers for some of these topics, just come by my [[User talk:Reuben|talk page]]. --[[User:Reuben|Reuben]] 01:42, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

== peopel and history ==

Line 80 ⟶ 86:

This article needs some attention from an expert. It focuses only on detection, and doesn't do an adequate job of discussing theoretical or observational reasons for expecting that WIMPs might exist. It talks about how to make patterns of mass distribution of galaxies fit observations by inserting cold dark matter in a simulation, but doesn't discuss, e.g., cosmic microwave background measurements, which, IIRC, rule out baryons as the main form of dark matter. The following sentence doesn't make sense: "Although predicted scattering rates for WIMPs from nuclei are significant for large detector target masses,prediction that halo WIMPs may, as they pass through the Sun, interact with solar protons and helium nuclei." There is no real discussion of their possible particle-theoretical properties. Are they assumed to be fermions? If so, why? Are they their own antiparticles? Are they expected to come in families? The article refers to supersymmetry. Do WIMPS exist generically in all supersymmetric models? What kind of bosons would their supersymmetic partners be?--[[Special:Contributions/76.93.42.50|76.93.42.50]] ([[User talk:76.93.42.50|talk]]) 03:45, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

::WIMPS could be either bosons or fermions. If they are fermions, then they would be expected to be superpartners of the [[Z Bosonboson]], the [[photon]], or the neutral [[Higgs Boson]] (it's possible that the superpartners of those bosons may mix, forming superpositions, with the lightest one being a stable WIMP). If the [[graviton]] exists, then it would have a superpartner with spin 3/2, meaning that it could not mix with the previous three superpartners. The gravitino would probably interact only via [[gravity]] and so would be harder to observe than the other three.

::If WIMPS are bosons, then they could be superpartners of the three [[neutrinos]], with one superposition (the least massive one) being stable. [[User:Stonemason89|Stonemason89]] ([[User talk:Stonemason89|talk]]) 16:47, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Line 86 ⟶ 92:

They're no longer a "hypothetical" class of particles. In December 2009, researchers in the Soudan mine announced that they may have observed WIMPs. [[User:Stonemason89|Stonemason89]] ([[User talk:Stonemason89|talk]]) 16:40, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

== Garbled sentence ==

Could someone with knowledge of the subject fix this sentence: "Although predicted scattering rates for WIMPs from nuclei are significant for large detector target masses, prediction that halo WIMPs may, as they pass through the Sun, interact with solar protons and helium nuclei."--[[User:ArnoldReinhold|agr]] ([[User talk:ArnoldReinhold|talk]]) 08:20, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

I SO agree! In essence it reads: "Although predicted scattering rates… are significant… prediction that halo WIMPs may... interact with solar protons and helium nuclei."

1. "prediction" should surely either be plural, or written as "a prediction" or "the prediction"?

2. The expectation brought about by "Although" is never satisfied! Evidently there should be something after nuclei, PLEASE could someone fill it in?

[[User:L0ngpar1sh|L0ngpar1sh]] ([[User talk:L0ngpar1sh|talk]]) 10:01, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

== Could discuss explanations proposed for conflicting results ==

Positive results have been reported from germanium detectors but not for xenon based detectors. The Nobile ref in further reading mentions isospin-violating couplings (DM interacting differently with protons and neutrons) as a possible explanation. There are probably better/later refs we could use. - [[User:Rod57|Rod57]] ([[User talk:Rod57|talk]]) 12:22, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

== Annual modulation re direct detection ==

Could mention that collision-less DM will have slightly different annual modulation to self-interacting DM (eg as in [http://arxiv.org/abs/1211.1377 Direct detection of self-interacting dark matter]). - [[User:Rod57|Rod57]] ([[User talk:Rod57|talk]]) 23:00, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

== External links modified (January 2018) ==

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on [[Weakly interacting massive particles]]. Please take a moment to review [[special:diff/821698912|my edit]]. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit [[User:Cyberpower678/FaQs#InternetArchiveBot|this simple FaQ]] for additional information. I made the following changes:

*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20100618221140/http://cdms.berkeley.edu/results_summary.pdf to http://cdms.berkeley.edu/results_summary.pdf

*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20061020063709/http://relativity.livingreviews.org/Articles/lrr-2002-4/index.html to http://relativity.livingreviews.org/Articles/lrr-2002-4/index.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

{{sourcecheck|checked=false|needhelp=}}

Cheers.—[[User:InternetArchiveBot|'''<span style="color:darkgrey;font-family:monospace">InternetArchiveBot</span>''']] <span style="color:green;font-family:Rockwell">([[User talk:InternetArchiveBot|Report bug]])</span> 02:46, 22 January 2018 (UTC)