Obtaining the first experimental evidence of the existence of the Higgs boson about ten years ago made it possible to take a new step in understanding the structure of the Universe. The Higgs boson has ceased to be a hypothesis, and on this basis we can continue to build our knowledge about the world around us. For example, try to detect a hypothetical dark matter particle, for which the Higgs boson may be the only bridge between visible and invisible matter.
An artistic representation of dark matter. Image source: Axel Mellinger, Central Michigan University
Thus, an article appeared on the arXiv preprint website that denies the possibility of hypothetical dark matter particles being too heavy. Scientists reasonably prove the impossibility of such a development of events, relying on the recent discovery of the Higgs boson. Until solid evidence of its existence was obtained, there was little point in further searching, but now this path is open. Until now, scientists have been looking for dark matter particles in the mass range of 10–1000 GeV (gigaelectronvolts). This fit within the framework of the Standard Model of elementary particles and placed the dark matter particle on the same mass scale as top quarks and W bosons, the heaviest known elementary particles.
The discovery of the Higgs boson with a mass of about 125 GeV at the Large Hadron Collider in 2012 made it possible to impose fundamental restrictions on the mass of putative dark matter particles. Most models assume (and this is consistent with the Standard Model) that in the process of interacting with particles, the Higgs boson gives them mass and changes its own. This means that dark matter particles that are too heavy would have such a destructive effect on the Higgs boson that it would destroy all our established ideas about the structure of the Universe.
Superheavy dark matter particles could only be tolerated if they were completely isolated from interaction with the Higgs boson and, therefore, with visible matter, and also if there was some exotic interaction mechanism. All this makes us reject the search for superheavy dark matter particles as unlikely and direct the search towards light candidates, for example, axions.
Dark matter has become necessary to explain the mysteries of the Universe – the accelerated rotation of stars around the centers of galaxies and the movement of galaxies in clusters around a common center of mass. It is obvious that something inexplicable is happening around us from the standpoint of modern knowledge about the structure of the world. Scientists suspect that there is matter in the world that interacts very weakly and rarely with visible matter solely by gravity. It causes ordinary matter to assemble faster and influences the evolution of the Universe. The search for heavy candidates for this role did not work out, so scientists are now focusing on searching for light particles.