【科学种子科技英语】猎获难以捉摸的暗物质离子宣告失败

发布日期:2017-11-20 10:07:46 阅读数:919

 

Physicistsbegin to embrace alternative explanations for the missing material.

物理学家开始寻找关于暗物质的其他替代解释。

Scientists working on the XENON1Texperiment are searching for signs of dark matter.

进行XENON1T实验的科学家们在寻找暗物质的迹象。


双语阅读

Physicists are growing ever more frustratedin their hunt for dark matter — the massive but hard-to-detect substance thatis thought to comprise 85% of the material Universe. Teams working with theworld’s most sensitive dark-matter detectors report that they have failed tofind the particles, and that the ongoing drought has challenged theorists’prevailing views.

关于寻找暗物质,物理学家们越发觉得沮丧,这种大量的难以觉察的物质被认为组成了85%的宇宙。研究小组使用了世界上最灵敏的暗物质探测器,他们的研究中没有发现暗物质离子。持续的未果对理论学家主流观点提出了挑战。

  

The latest results from an experiment calledXENON1T at the Gran Sasso National Laboratory in Italy, published on 30 October,continue a dry spell stretching back 30 years in the quest to nab dark-matterparticles. An attempt by a Chinese team to detect the elusive stuff, theresults of which were published on the same day, also came up empty-handed.Ongoing attempts by space-based telescopes, as well as at CERN, the Europeanparticle-physics laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland, have also not spotted anyhints of dark-matter particles.

该研究发表在10月30日,是意大利的Gran Sasso国家实验室里一项名为XENON1T的实验的最新结果,持续30年寻找暗物质粒子依然颗粒无收。该研究发表的同一天,中国研究小组曾经尝试监测结果也空手而回。诸如,在瑞士日内瓦附近的欧洲粒子物理实验室CERN也曾用太空望远镜不断尝试,也没有发现任何暗物质微粒的迹象。

  

The findings have left researchersstruggling for answers. “We do not understand how the Universe works at adeeper and more profound level than most of us care to admit,” says StacyMcGaugh, an astrophysicist at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland,Ohio.

这些研究结果无法让研究人员获得答案。美国俄亥俄州克利夫兰凯斯西储大学的天体物理学家斯泰西·麦戈(Stacy McGaugh)说:“我们无法理解宇宙中那些比我们已经所认为的更深处更加深刻层面的工作原理。”

 

Physicists have widely accepted theexistence of dark matter since the 1980s as an explanation for why galaxiesremain intact rather than flying apart, which would be expected given theamount of observable mass they contain and how fast they rotate. Researcherssurmised that halos of invisible dark matter surround galaxies and stabilizethem. Physicists grew more confident when dark-matter models successfullypredicted the fluctuations detected in an observable echo of the Big Bang,known as the cosmic microwave background.

自20世纪80年代以来,物理学家已经广泛接受暗物质的存在,作为解释为什么星系保持完整而非分散状态,这通过观测质量以及它们旋转的速度预测。研究人员推测,隐形的暗物质晕围绕着星系并让星系保持稳定。当时由于暗物质模型成功地预测了宇宙微波背景的可观测的宇宙大爆炸回波,物理学家们的信心持续增长。

  

These observations became the most dramaticevidence for a proposal in the 1980s that dark matter might be formed of weaklyinteracting massive particles, known as WIMPs. The existence of such particlesfits with how physicists think that the Universe evolved, and with the relativeabundance of matter. Moreover, the properties of WIMPs would match thosepredicted by a branch of particle physics called supersymmetry.

20世纪80年代立关于暗物质可能是由弱相互作用的大质量粒子(称为WIMPs)形成的观点大量的运用了这些观察结果。这些粒子的存在与物理学家认为的宇宙的发展和物质的相对丰富相吻合。此外,WIMP的性质也符合由称为超对称的粒子物理学分支所预测的性质。

 

The latest round of results seems to ruleout the simplest and most elegant super-symmetry theories, casting doubt on theidea that the still-undetected particles are the missing dark matter. If simplesupersymmetry theories are no longer viable, scientists say, any WIMP particlehas to interact with matter much more feebly than physicists once thought.“It’s not a wholesale retreat from the WIMP paradigm, but it is definitely achange in emphasis,” says Dan Hooper, a physicist at the Fermi National AcceleratorLaboratory in Batavia, Illinois.

最新一轮研究结果排除了最简单、最优雅的超对称理论,并对这个仍然未被发现的粒子就是缺失的暗物质的观点产生了怀疑。 如果简单的超对称理论不再可行,科学家们说,任何WIMP粒子都必须与物质相互作用,这物理学家曾经想象的要复杂得多。伊利诺伊州巴达维亚费米国家加速器实验室的物理学家丹·胡珀(Dan Hooper)说:“不是对WIMP体的全盘撤退,而是对重点的改变。”

  

Attitudes are shifting, and physicists areincreasingly embracing other possible explanations for dark matter, says DavidSpergel, a theoretical astrophysicist at Princeton University in New Jersey,who was an early proponent of WIMP models. “These experiments haven’tcompletely closed the window. However, we also need to be thinking about othertypes of dark matter and new experiments,” he says.

新泽西州普林斯顿大学理论天体物理学家大卫·斯佩尔(David Spergel)是WIMP模型的早期倡导者称,人们的态度发生了变化,物理学家也更加能接受其他关于暗物质可能的解释,这些实验并没有完全停止,但是,我们也需要考虑其他类型的暗物质和新的实验。”


科技词汇



Alternative 替代的

Sings 迹象

Dark matter 暗物质

Frustrated 沮丧

Massive 大量

Hard-to-detect 难以觉察的

Drought 干旱

Prevailing 主要的

Nab 捕获

Elusive 难以捉摸的

Ongoing 持续的

Profound 深刻的

Astrophysicist 天体物理学家

Intact 完整的

Observable 显著的

Rotate 旋转的

Surmise 推测

Halos 光圈

Stabilize 稳定

Fluctuations 波动

Supersymmetry 超对称性

Paradigm 范式




互动问答


本期:迷你数独

每个谜题都由一个在不同位置给与提示数字的4x4或6x6网格组成。游戏的目的是将空方格填上数字1到4(对于4x4大小的谜题)或者1到6(对于6x6的谜题),使得每一行,每一列以及每一个宫都没有重复的数字出现。

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本期难度:Diabolical

(答案见下期)

 

注:数独是一种源自 18 世纪末的瑞士数学家欧拉所创造的拉丁方块游戏。传数独源起于拉丁方阵( Latin Square ), 1970 年代在美国发展,改名为数字拼图( Number Place )、之后流传至日本并发扬光大,以数学智力游戏智力拼图游戏发表。在 1984 年一本游戏杂志《パズル通信ニコリ》正式把它命名为数独,意思是“在每一格只有一个数字”。后来一位前任香港高等法院的新西兰籍法官高乐德( Wayne Gould )在 1997 年 3 月到日本东京旅游时,无意中发现了。他首先在英国的《泰晤士报》上发表,不久其他报纸也发表,很快便风靡全英国,之后他用了 6 年时间编写了电脑程式,并将它放在网站上,使这个游戏很快在全世界流行