Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris, UMR 7095-CNRS, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, 98 bis Boulevard Arago, 75014 Paris, France.
Nature. 2010 Nov 18;468(7322):389-93. doi: 10.1038/nature09509.
We know that dark matter constitutes 85 per cent of all the matter in the Universe, but we do not know of what it is made. Amongst the many dark matter candidates proposed, WIMPs (weakly interacting massive particles) occupy a special place, because they arise naturally from new theories that seek to extend the standard model of particle physics. With the advent of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, and a new generation of astroparticle experiments, the moment of truth has come for WIMPs: either we will discover them in the next five to ten years, or we will witness their inevitable decline.
我们知道，暗物质占据了宇宙中所有物质的 85%，但我们不知道它由什么构成。在众多被提出的暗物质候选者中，弱相互作用大质量粒子（WIMP）占据着特殊的地位，因为它们自然地源于试图拓展粒子物理标准模型的新理论。随着欧洲核子研究中心的大型强子对撞机和新一代的天体粒子实验的出现，WIMP 的关键时刻已经到来：要么我们将在未来五到十年内发现它们，要么我们将见证它们的不可避免的衰落。
