Astronomers reasoned that the deployment of many atomic clocks and ultra-precise quantum sensors in space would allow determining the existence of so-called “axions”.
They are very light particles of dark matter.
And American and Japanese astronomers discovered that the deployment of many atomic clocks and ultra-accurate quantum sensors in space will make it possible to detect traces of the presence of very light particles of dark matter in the bowels of the sun or in its immediate vicinity. Plans to send a solar probe equipped with such devices were revealed in a scientific article published in the journal Nature Astronomy.
And the article stated: “We propose to send the SpaceQ space mission to the immediate vicinity of the sun, and the mission must include one or more probes equipped with ultra-accurate atomic clocks and quantum sensors. The measurements that will be made near the sun will help us understand whether there is an invisible cluster of super lights inside the sun and in its immediate surroundings.”
Although scientists do not question the existence of dark matter, today its nature and properties are the subject of fierce debate among physicists. The fact is that over the past two decades, researchers have found no hints that they consist of so-called WIMPs, cool, superheavy particles that manifest themselves in no way other than by attracting visible accumulations of matter.
The failure to detect these particles made many cosmologists hypothesize that dark matter may in fact consist of so-called axions, which are lightweight particles similar in mass and properties to neutrons. Early searches also ended in failure, but two years ago, XENON 1T detected the first possible evidence of this form of dark matter. However, scientists questioned those results this year after analyzing the first data from the much more powerful XENONnT.
The failure to discover light and heavy dark matter forced a team of scientists headed by Maryana Safonova, a professor at New York University, to search for its sources outside our planet, and the closest one is the sun, where some models of axions can accumulate according to the calculations of some theorists.
Physicists pointed out that the accumulations of these invisible particles of dark matter will affect the structure of time and space and distort it in a special way, and also affect some fundamental constants in a similar way. These shifts can be detected by tracking how the nature of the ultra-accurate atomic clocks approaching and moving away from accumulations of axions periodically changes.
Based on these considerations, the scientists calculated the probability of detecting these anomalies if a number of atomic clocks and associated quantum sensors were installed on the space probe. These calculations showed that upgraded versions of existing atomic clocks could be used to search for axions over a very wide range of masses and energies.
In order to achieve this, it will be necessary to send a probe carrying these delicate devices to the regions of space near the sun, which are located about three times closer to the star than near Mercury. In this case, the SpaceQ hypothetical mission, as Professor Safronova and her colleagues have dubbed it, would not only be able to detect or rule out axions, but would be able to test some aspects of Einstein’s general theory to record high precision.