Wednesday, August 5, 2026
Science

Using the Earth's magnetic field to hunt for axions and dark photons

Dark matter's existence is all but certain—astronomers believe it makes up about a quarter of the universe's total energy content—yet its true identity has eluded us for decades. Two of the leading candidates for dark matter are the hypothetical particles ultralight axions and dark photons, which in...

Using the Earth's magnetic field to hunt for axions and dark photons
Image: Phys.org
Dark matter's existence is all but certain—astronomers believe it makes up about a quarter of the universe's total energy content—yet its true identity has eluded us for decades. Two of the leading candidates for dark matter are the hypothetical particles ultralight axions and dark photons, which in the range studied here would be some 19 to 21 orders of magnitude lighter than the electron.

Originally published at Phys.org

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