Goodbye, DAMA/LIBRA: World’s Most Controversial Dark Matter Experiment Fails Replication Test
We still don’t know what dark matter is, but at least we now know what it’s not.
When it comes to science, we often say that it only takes a single experiment to overturn a theory. But that’s predicated on a very big, often unspoken assumption: that the experiment is robust, and isn’t suffering from any major unseen errors. For decades, now, scientists have been searching valiantly for the elusive particle that might make up some or even all of the dark matter. While the astrophysical evidence supporting the existence of dark matter is overwhelming, every experiment designed and built to directly detect whatever particle might be responsible for dark matter has come up empty.
Every experiment, that is, except one: the DAMA/LIBRA experiment. While other experiments that are far more sensitive — including SuperCDMS, XENON, Edelweiss, LUX, and many others — have only detected negative results down to extreme precisions, DAMA/LIBRA has continuously observed a significant signal for about 20 years. At last, the critical test has been performed: a completely independent team, ANAIS, has carried out an identical experiment to DAMA/LIBRA, replicating the study and testing its validity. With three complete years of…
