This scientific journey begins inside an underground laboratory where they try to hunt down the dark matter of the cosmos
Carlos Peña Garay is a theoretical physicist and is the director of the Canfranc Underground Laboratory (LSC), one of those research centers that seems to only exist in Batman comics, he is the one who guides us on the journey.
The LSC is a space of 1,600 square meters within a mountain of the Aragonese Pyrenees, a laboratory that takes advantage of what was the Canfranc railway tunnel, The mass of rock that covers it neutralizes cosmic rays (not to mention the noise of the children or the effect of the sun) and, thus, isolated from everything known, it is possible to carry out experiments to detect the unknown.
In the LSC they try to hunt down dark matter or detect the particles that explain how the universe originated.
Studying a virus is like looking at elephants if you compare it to a neutrino
Probably the most misunderstood scientists in Spain work in this laboratory, because they eviscerate particles that cannot be seen, touched, or smelled underground, and may not even exist. Studying a virus is like looking at elephants if you compare it to a neutrino.
In these days of isolation, the LSC has remained active, and with a new plan in place that will help in the health crisis caused by the coronavirus. But, before, let's start with the zero moment, the beginning of all things, let's see how the origin of the universe could be.
Carlos Peña Garay is the one who told us this story:
Once upon a time, the universe
Theoretical physicists have told a story to the experimental physicists and they have developed techniques to see if the story is true. The hypothesis that we propose, and this is the story, is that in some nuclei a rarity should occur when they disintegrate ...
Weak decay is very common, producing a single electron and a neutrino. And the story that we have raised is that some nuclei, when they disintegrate, rarely produce two electrons without generating neutrinos.
This has never been observed, but if it were observed, if it were, it could bring us closer to explaining the origin of everything that exists.
Let's keep going. You have to get to the neutrino
Well, the nuclei of some atoms when they are not in an absolutely stable configuration emit, in addition to light, neutrinos.
Whenever a particle is generated, nature allows it to create its antiparticle, that is, its mirror particle. They are exactly the same but with opposite charges. When they arise, they attract each other, they annihilate each other, their entire mass disappears and they become two rays of light.
And the question is, if every created particle is destroyed with its antiparticle, how has the universe managed to exist?
This is the case in the phenomena observed in nature, and also in the laboratory: matter and antimatter always behave like this.
And the question is, if every created particle is destroyed with its antiparticle, how has the universe managed to exist?
We have a good story to explain, and that is that at the beginning of the universe neutrinos were responsible for breaking the matter-antimatter balance. A lot of matter and a lot of antimatter arose, and the particles destroyed each other, but a small asymmetry thanks to the neutrinos allowed a small excess of matter. If it were not so, we would be what the universe is for the most part, all light.
Every billion light particles there is approximately one of matter. Here on Earth we are in a zone of concentration of matter. But if you take the whole universe, what dominates is light. Neutrinos have made it more than just light (but this remains, for now, just a tale).
We are the leftover stuff
For this story to be true, for there to be that imbalance, there have to be some special nuclei that when disintegrating produce two electrons without neutrinos, just as they produce two electrons with two neutrinos. One such rare and unique neutrino would not have its equivalent antimatter with which to self-destruct. That would generate the imbalance.
So we are looking for an experiment to show that this decay exists where some special nuclei emit only two electrons. One of the ongoing experiments led by Spanish Juan José Gómez Cadenas and American David Nygren is among the three most promising European techniques, recently selected to demonstrate it.
In search of the nature of the dark matter of the universe
Also, in the universe we lack matter… There is at least five times more matter in the universe than we can observe. We don't know what it is, but we know it exists because we see it by gravity.
Proof of the existence of dark matter
The famous "bullet cluster" is the clearest evidence that scientists have about the existence of dark matter. It is actually the result of the frontal collision of two galaxy clusters that traversed each other. The pink / violet color of the photo that illustrates this report is the hot gas that the galaxies left behind in the collision and blue is the supposed distribution of dark matter that accompanies them.
We indirectly see that dark matter exists because there is more gravitational attraction to it in the universe, more than expected if only the matter we see existed by light. So at LSC we also design experiments expecting dark matter particles to leave a signal on our detectors, which are ultra-sensitive.
The ANAIS experiment has been collecting data for two years to try to refute an Italian experiment in which they thought they found them.
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| Using ultrapure sodium iodide detectors, they will try to confirm a signal registered by another Italian dark matter particle laboratory |
We use a ton of liquid argon as a means of detecting dark matter particles.
We have another experiment underway with other laboratories in the world to detect it, and for this one, we use liquid argon. The consortium is called Global Argon Dark Matter Collaboration. For this experiment we use a ton of liquid argon as the detection medium. The idea is that dark matter can collide with argon, argon would emit light and electrons, which would allow us to know that its origin is that of those inexplicable particles that make up dark matter.
And so we come to the health crisis caused by COVID-19
The principal investigator of the Global Argon Dark Matter Collaboration is from Milan, and when he experienced the coronavirus crisis he proposed to make our work available to look for solutions against the pandemic. We are experts in the management of argon, a gas with properties very similar to air. So we proposed to use our knowledge in this technology to develop ventilators, autonomous ventilators that could be used in the ICUs of hospitals.
150 scientists and engineers, we work to make a high-end and cheap respirator for ICUs
An international consortium, the Milan Mechanical Fan (MVM) consortium, together with Italy, Canada, France and the USA, was raised from the outset. The five countries, counting on Spain, with more than 150 scientists and engineers, are working to make a respirator that not only solves the specific problem, but can also be used in hospitals around the world in the future. We have designed the most advanced respirators at a reduced price. A high-end respirator costs approximately thirty thousand euros, while our model can be built for 1000 euros and with an open license. You have just obtained an emergency use permit from the US agency FDA. Thus, from the most advanced research in dark matter, we get quality and inexpensive respirators for hospitals, and these save lives, in times of coronavirus more than ever.
Research centers participating in this work
The Center for Energy, Environmental and Technological Research (CIEMAT) coordinates the Spanish participation in the consortium (MVM) for which it has had the Canfranc Underground Laboratory, the Center for Astroparticles and Physics of High Energy (CAPA, University of Zaragoza) , the Polytechnic University of Madrid, the Institute of Sanitary Research of Aragon, the Aragón Foundation for Research and Development (ARAID), the Catholic University of Valencia, as well as doctors from Eliance Helicopters, from the ICU Service of the General Hospital San Jorge (Huesca) and the Pulmonology Service of the Jiménez Díaz Foundation (Madrid).
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