Strange pulses that don’t seem to abide by the laws of particle physics have been detected in Antarctica. These radio waves, emanating from below the ice, could be evidence of dark matter and have been puzzling scientists since their discovery.
The new study, published in Physical Review Letters, provides details about these strange signals. In Antarctica, radio waves are often detected after being reflected off the ice. These recent waves, however, appear to be coming from beneath the ice, a location that can’t be explained by physics and may suggest a new, previously unseen type of particle.
“The radio waves that we detected were at really steep angles, like 30 degrees below the surface of the ice,” said Stephanie Wissel, associate professor of physics, astronomy, and astrophysics at Penn State, in a press release. “It’s an interesting problem because we still don’t actually have an explanation for what these anomalies are, but what we do know is that they’re most likely not representing neutrinos.”
Read More: What the Mysterious Bloop Taught Us About Antarctica
Detecting Strange Signals in Antarctica
The strange signals were detected by the Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna (ANITA) experiment. ANITA is a collection of scientific instruments flown high above the Antarctic on balloons. These instruments are designed to detect radio waves that occur as a result of cosmic rays hitting the atmosphere.
Normally, the radio waves hoping to be detected by ANITA are made up of neutrinos. Neutrinos are very common and incredibly small, being the subatomic particle with the smallest mass. Due to them being so small, they are also famously hard to find and require sophisticated detection instruments like ANITA.
“You have a billion neutrinos passing through your thumbnail at any moment, but neutrinos don’t really interact. So, this is the double-edged sword problem. If we detect them, it means they have traveled all this way without interacting with anything else. We could be detecting a neutrino coming from the edge of the observable universe,” said Wissel in the press release.
Although difficult to detect, the payoff is big. Even the tiniest signal from a neutrino contains tons of important information. Once a signal has been detected, you can follow it back to its source, and it can tell scientists more about the cosmos than even the most high-powered telescopes.
Neutrinos Vs. Anomalies
When it comes to the physics of it all, neutrino signals are easy to trace back to their origin because they work similarly to a bouncing ball — no matter what angle a ball is thrown, we can always predict that it will bounce back at that same angle.
The newly detected signal does not behave in this predictable way, as its strange angle is much sharper than anything observed before. This led the ANITA team to declare that these signals were not neutrinos and are instead what is known as anomalous.
Anomalous signals, like the ones picked up in Antarctica, do not behave in a way predictable or understandable through current models of particle physics. Although scientists have yet to figure out what these signals are or where they came from, there are some theories, including the idea that these signals could be hinting at the presence of dark matter.
The research team is currently working on the design process for an even bigger and better detector than ANITA. Their hope is that, once built, the new detector will be able to provide more information on the strange, anomalous signal from deep below the Antarctic ice.
“I’m excited that when we fly [the new detector], we’ll have better sensitivity. In principle, we should pick up more anomalies, and maybe we’ll actually understand what they are. We also might detect neutrinos, which would in some ways be a lot more exciting,” said Wissel in the press release.
Read More: The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment Could Answer Profound Cosmic Questions
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As the marketing coordinator at Discover Magazine, Stephanie Edwards interacts with readers across Discover’s social media channels and writes digital content. Offline, she is a contract lecturer in English & Cultural Studies at Lakehead University, teaching courses on everything from professional communication to Taylor Swift, and received her graduate degrees in the same department from McMaster University. You can find more of her science writing in Lab Manager and her short fiction in anthologies and literary magazine across the horror genre.
