Late last night, maybe even midnight (I'd hit the hay right after finishing Wilczek's book about nine PM), the Kavli IPMU put out a press release through its Japanese domain. They are on the hunt for "axions". I might as well transmit Wilczek's take on these.
Wilczek has gone long on axions, mediating his "axial field". In fact, he gave to these elusive particles their name - inspired by a detergent, no less. This is the "Higgs boson" of dark matter, if you like; a wonder-particle explaining a lot of stuff at once.
Also like Higgs, axial researchers constrain the axion's mass ever-higher until, as with Higgs in 2012, they (hope to) find it so proving the field. Unlike Higgs, the axion cannot be detected in any mortals' lab. But the primordial axial-field fallout can be mapped: beyond that Cosmic Microwave Background which, against Big Bang research prior to 400000 years, presents the foreground. Kavli IPMU figure that experiments looking for dark matter can be reconfigured to map the axial background. If that earlier field exists/-ed.
As noted here, axial research got Betelgeuse wrong and couldn't find any axions thence; and I haven't heard any followup from those seven quasi-magnetars. I've been an axion skeptic for about half a year now. And Wilczek is a climatebro so a thorough heart<3soience normie. I distrust normies.
But as the IPMU point out, even if there is no field and its axions don't exist, any map of whatever is behind the CMB is still of value.
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