Physicists have taken yet another step in revealing the dark matter which permeates the universe.
By using a supercomputer, a team at the Julich Super Computing centre in Germany has estimated the mass of hypothetical particles which makes up more than a quarter of the ‘stuff’ in existence.
The lengthy calculations predicts that that the particle is much heavier than previously thought.
The team calculated the temperature range of axion using supercomputer. Results showed that the mass of the axion was in the range of 50 to 1500 micro-electron volts,billion times lighter than the electron.
The detailed research study was published in the journal Nature . In the paper, the researchers revealed that it should be possible with in next few years to experimentally confirm axions, a particle which exists as a mystery.
The team used supercomputer to simulate the universe just after Big Bang, reports Nature journal.
In the moment just after the universe popped into creation, the temperature was millions of degrees and universe expanded exponentially.
From this elaborate setup, they were able to simulate the creation of axions after this point, working out their mass, David Castelvicchi of Nature explains.
Dark matter constitutes roughly 27 percent of the universe and is invisible because it doesn’t reflect light.
Understanding it would vastly increase human knowledge about the cosmos and everything in it . At present there are two main theories about what dark matter is made of- either it’s composed of a few heavy particles or a large number of extremely light particles.
