The non-existence of "dark matter(TM)"

Desperate search for dark matter with increasingly sensitive detectors has yielded nothing so far; maybe it never existed except in the standard theory of cosmology Dr Mae Wan Ho

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A new high accuracy calibration of the LUX (Large Underground Xenon) dark matter detector’s sensitivity to ultra-low energy events strongly confirms the result that it did not find low-mass dark matter particles during last summer’s initial run [1].

Dark matter is thought to account for about 80 percent of the mass of the universe, and without its gravitational influence, galaxies and galaxy clusters would simply fly apart.

No one knows what dark matter is but the leading idea is that it consists of subatomic particles called WIMPs, weakly interacting massive particles, thought to be practically ubiquitous in the universe, but because they interact so rarely with other forms of matter, they are hard to detect. LUX is designed to detect those rare occasions when a WIMP does interact with other forms of matter.

The LUX detector, buried more than a mile underground at the Sanford Underground Research Facility in South Dakota, is shielded from cosmic rays and other radiation that might interfere with signals from WIMPS. It consists of a third of a ton of supercooled xenon in a tank fully bugged with light sensors, each capable of detecting a single photon at a time. As WiMPs pass through the tank, they should on rare occasions bump into the nucleus of a xenon atom and create a tiny flash of light that could be picked up by the sensors.

The first dark matter search results from the LUX detector were announced in October 2013. The detector was exquisitely sensitive, but found no evidence of dark matter during its first 90 day run. This contradicted previous experiments that had detected potential signatures of dark matter particles with very low mass. The latest work focused on demonstrating the high sensitivity of LUX to potential signals......