Resumen de Lightweight dark matter packing a stronger punch
A strange light is shining near the center of the Milky Way, and evidence is mounting that it is the spark of lightweight dark matter meeting a violent end. A suite of sensitive detectors deep underground is also seeing hints of similar particles. At a physics meeting in Colorado last month, the group behind the CDMS-II detector in the Soudan mine in Minnesota presented evidence of three detection events, all at around 10 GeV. This lines up with earlier results from the CoGeNT detector, housed in the same mine. And revised analysis of data from another pair of experiments, XENON-10 and XENON-100, housed at the Gran Sasso underground lab in Italy, now supports the lightweight signal. Seeing the same excess gamma-ray signal elsewhere in the sky, such as from dwarf galaxies, would further support the dark matter interpretation, says Kevork Abazajian at the University of California, Irvine. As for direct detection, the 10Gev particles are at the edge of what CDMS-II is able to detect. But confirmation may come in a matter of months with the first results from the LUX detector, built under the Black Hills of South Dakota.
