Scientists say they can explain dark matter by positing a particle that links to a fifth dimension.

While the “warped extra dimension” (WED) is

Scientists Are Pretty Sure They Found a Portal to the Fifth Dimension

submited by

Style Pass

2024-12-25 01:30:14

Scientists say they can explain dark matter by positing a particle that links to a fifth dimension. While the “warped extra dimension” (WED) is a trademark of a popular physics model first introduced in 1999, this research, published in The European Physical Journal C, is the first to cohesively use the theory to explain the long-lasting dark matter problem within particle physics.

Our knowledge of the physical universe relies on the idea of dark matter, which takes up the vast majority of matter in the universe. Dark matter is a kind of pinch hitter that helps scientists explain how gravity works, because a lot of features would dissolve or fall apart without an “x factor” of dark matter. Even so, dark matter doesn’t disrupt the particles we do see and “feel,” meaning it must have other special properties as well.

“[T]here are still some questions which do not have an answer within the [standard model of physics],” the scientists, from Spain and Germany, explain in their study: