Wimpzillas (particle 1000 billion times more massive than proton) leave tracks say astronomers

New Scientist ^ | 12:30 03 June 02 | Anil Ananthaswamy

[dead]

An army of monster Wimpzillas is hiding out in our Galaxy and Earth is under attack. Fantastical as these beasts sound, they could solve two mysteries that have been plaguing physicists for years: the source of the Universe's missing mass, and the origin of the most powerful cosmic rays hitting our planet.

Physicists have worked out that most matter in the Universe must be made up of "dark matter" we cannot see, otherwise galaxies wouldn't have enough gravitational pull to hold themselves together. So far, the most likely candidates for dark matter are WIMPs, or weakly interacting massive particles, that have 50 to 100 times the mass of a proton. The trouble is, no one has ever detected one.

That may be because WIMPS, by definition, tend to pass straight through ordinary matter. Or dark matter might be made of something else. In 1999, Edward Kolb of the Enrico Fermi Institute in Chicago and his colleagues proposed another candidate particle that would have been created just after the big bang. The tremendous energies would have created particles 10 billion times the mass of WIMPs, so the researchers named these behemoths Wimpzillas.

"Although they have a weird name, Wimpzillas are among the most reasonable of current speculative ideas in the field," says Angela Olinto, also of the Enrico Fermico Institute. And if Wimpzillas exist, they would explain another puzzle: where do ultra-high energy cosmic rays come from?

Wimpzilla annihilation

These beams of particles bombard Earth from space. Their energies are too high for them to have travelled from a distant source, so they must have been created close by, but astrophysicists have no idea what in our neighbourhood could have caused them.

The annihilation or decay of Wimpzillas would create such high-energy particles says Kolb, along with Pasquale Blasi of the Arcetri Astrophysical Observatory in Florence, Italy, and Rainer Dick of the University of Saskatchewan in Canada, in a paper to be published in the journal Astroparticle Physics. As this superheavy dark matter would exist in our Galaxy, the particles could easily reach Earth.

While WIMPs have been impossible to detect, finding their heavier counterparts should be easier. The researchers have calculated that if ultra-high-energy cosmic rays are made by Wimpzillas, they should be composed mainly of gamma rays, rather than protons or atomic nuclei. And it should soon be possible to check this.

The next generation of cosmic-ray detectors such as the Pierre Auger Observatory in Argentina and the Extreme Universe Space Observatory, which will be deployed on the International Space Station, will be able to peer into the centre of our Galaxy.

If Blasi and his colleagues are right, they expect to see gamma rays streaming out from the centre of the Galaxy, as Wimpzillas should be there in abundance. "It could revolutionise our understanding of basic physics in this century," says Dick.

[boris]

"I'm pretty sure he generates his own gravity field equivalent to a black hole."

There was a famously obese promoter in San Francisco. Some wag described him as "An abdomen closely followed by a human being."

--Boris

[<1/1,000,000th%]

I think I like WHOMPs better than WIMPZILLAs.

My own personal theory, that I thought up while I was taking my daughter driving, is that the missing mass in the universe is contained in particles moving faster than the speed of light. Since their mass is imaginary, they are difficult to detect using traditional methods.

However, in my soon to be published reference work on faster than light science fiction theories (available for $19.95 plus $6.95 shipping and handling), I describe a 2nd order differential equation where the mass appears as a square. This explains the missing mass AND medved's Saturn origin theories.

Hee hee hee hee hee...

[PatrickHenry]

I describe a 2nd order differential equation where the mass appears as a square.

You are groping your way toward the ultimate truth. TIME CUBE .

[Movemout]

Just think of the possibilities:

Abbot and Costella meet Wimpzilla

Wimpzilla vs. Rodan

Wimpzilla-- Episode One

[Gumlegs]

Wimpzillas come in flavors too? I thought it was just quarks.

[steve-b]

medved's Saturn origin theories

I'm probably going to regret asking this, but to what are you referring?

[<1/1,000,000th%]

On another thread medved explains how the Earth originally orbited around Saturn and moved to its current location a couple thousand years ago. Great stuff.

[steve-b]

My brain hurts. I knew I shouldn't have asked....

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Outside of the extreme difficulty of working through the physics, and the Erich Von Daniken interpretation of ancient cultures, its an interesting concept for a science fiction novel. In the Dr. Who universe, the earth is removed from the solar system entirely in about a million years from now.