{"id":32191,"date":"2016-11-25T10:50:51","date_gmt":"2016-11-25T18:50:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2016\/11\/na64-hunts-the-mysterious-dark-photon"},"modified":"2017-06-04T14:01:44","modified_gmt":"2017-06-04T21:01:44","slug":"na64-hunts-the-mysterious-dark-photon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2016\/11\/na64-hunts-the-mysterious-dark-photon","title":{"rendered":"NA64 hunts the mysterious dark photon"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/na64-hunts-the-mysterious-dark-photon.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>One of the biggest puzzles in physics is that eighty-five percent of the matter in our universe is \u201cdark\u201d: it does not interact with the photons of the conventional electromagnetic force and is therefore invisible to our eyes and telescopes. Although the composition and origin of dark matter are a mystery, we know it exists because astronomers observe its gravitational pull on ordinary visible matter such as stars and galaxies.<\/p>\n<p>Some theories suggest that, in addition to gravity, <a href=\"http:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/dark+matter+particles\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">dark matter particles<\/a> could interact with visible matter through a new force, which has so far escaped detection. Just as the <a href=\"http:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/electromagnetic+force\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">electromagnetic force<\/a> is carried by the photon, this dark force is thought to be transmitted by a particle called \u201cdark\u201d photon which is predicted to act as a mediator between visible and dark matter.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo use a metaphor, an otherwise impossible dialogue between two people not speaking the same language (visible and dark matter) can be enabled by a mediator (the <a href=\"http:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/dark+photon\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">dark photon<\/a>), who understands one language and speaks the other one,\u201d explains Sergei Gninenko, spokesperson for the NA64 collaboration.<\/p>\n<p><!-- Link: <a href=\"http:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2016-11-na64-mysterious-dark-photon.html\">http:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2016&#45;11-na64-mysterious-dark-photon.html<\/a> --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the biggest puzzles in physics is that eighty-five percent of the matter in our universe is \u201cdark\u201d: it does not interact with the photons of the conventional electromagnetic force and is therefore invisible to our eyes and telescopes. Although the composition and origin of dark matter are a mystery, we know it exists [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":387,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cosmology","category-particle-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/387"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32191"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32191\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65713,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32191\/revisions\/65713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}