Antihelium Offers Hope in the Search for Dark Matter

An exotic form of antimatter called antihelium was created a few years ago. One of the biggest mysteries in physics is the nature of dark matter, and it could be answered by a naturally occurring antihelium particle.

Physicists think it could be abundant in our universe, formed by the decay of dark matter, an invisible substance that makes up 85% of the universe's matter. The team used their result to calculate the odds that Earth-based detectors could capture antihelium drifting in from space.

The team smashed more than a billion particles over the course of two years. They did two types of particle collisions, one of which broke apart the new particles, such as pions, kaons, and more protons. It took petabytes of data to record the wreck. They started to look through it. The part that was interesting to the ALICE collaboration was the only one that was removed. A large ion experiment collider is what it's called.

The team zeroed in on a version of the antiparticle that contained two antiproton and one antineutron. Scientists first observed the antiparticle in 1970 when they produced it in a collider. Even though antimatter forms naturally on our planet, it usually consists of lightweight particles such as positrons, which are thousands of times smaller than antihelium. The heavier the antimatter particle, the more rare it will be. Each extra nucleon will cost you about 300 or 400. The next nucleus will be produced with a lower factor than the previous one.

Physicists don't know what dark matter is made of because they don't know what it is. objects as heavy as black holes and as light as 100 millionths of an electron's mass are examples of hypotheses. Physicists proposed two decades ago that dark matter particles could produce matter and antimatter in equal amounts. If dark matter throws off antihelium, it's a sign that it's real.

Physicists searching for dark matter could look for both the matter and the antimatter it creates. There is equal amounts of dark matter and anti-dark matter in many models. As many anti-particles as particles from dark matter are generated.