Axion Ping!.....................
The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed,
But swollen with wind and the rank mist they draw,
Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread ...
— Milton
Quite a bit of dark matter shows up in our cats’ litter boxes every day.
I’m glad I didn’t become a physicist! I would be spending my nights looking into the dark sky trying to find dark matter. How disappointing it must be to look every night and see nothing but darkness! Maybe one night a bit of the dark matter will team up with that dark energy and put on a display.
I always liked the whole story of axions. Frank Wilczek was having a bit of fun by naming a potential fundamental particle of physics after a laundry detergent.
The discoverers based their notion of the axion field based on the same symmetry breaking that explains the Higgs boson. Unfortunately it is also 10 times heavier than the Higgs so the LHC can’t generate it using its current design. Maybe the neutron stars can give us a boost on this one.
All well & good...
However, until they find the hammerions & sawions & splitterions, I intend to take this all with a grain of salt...
IAC, to avoid being constantly triggered by “dark” matter discussions and breaking out in song about a campground, we should change the discussion to “transparent” matter...