Physicists searching for dark matter are gradually losing confidence in the one-time favorite candidate—the weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) (see Meetings: WIMP Alternatives Come Out of the Shadows). An alternative theory posits a host of dark-matter particles—a “dark sector”—that interact with regular matter not through the weak force, like WIMPs, but through a new interaction mediated by an undiscovered boson. The theory also suggests that this boson might explain another conundrum—the discrepancy between the measured and predicted values of the muon’s anomalous magnetic dipole moment (see Special Feature: The Muon g–2 Anamoly Explained). A new proof-of-principle experiment at CERN in Switzerland now constrains the properties of the dark sector and casts doubt on the hypothetical boson’s role in the g–2 anomaly [1].
That's just what happens when you put your faith in WIMPs.
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