originally posted in:Secular Sevens
[quote]The analysis resulted in three events, and the estimated background is 0.7 events.[/quote]
Not sure I understand what they mean by background. When it comes to radiation, we're talking about hits caused by the particles we're looking for that aren't from the source we're looking at. How can they have "background" events if their source is effectively the universe?
English
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They look at recoil of supercooled silicon atoms, and it happened three times during the experiment, and the estimated times a recoil should happen is 0.7 for an experiment of that duration if dark matter is not taken into account. (I think)
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I guess that's possible, but I wouldn't think that the energy imparted by a WIMP would be comparable to any other interaction.
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WIMPs interact via gravity, why do you think the energy would be incomparable?
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[quote]Scientists believe they occasionally bounce off, or scatter like billiard balls from, atomic nuclei, leaving behind a small amount of energy[/quote] If they're using semiconductor detectors, then whatever the interaction is doing is generating a current. Given that the mass/energy of WIMPS are measured in GeV (significantly more than any other particle that would be considered background) I would think that the energy they imparted would be substantially different than that of anything else, which would be reflected in the energy of the electrons released, thus reflected in the detector equipment.
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But not all the energy is imparted, only a small amount