Diverging paths to dark-matter discovery
Abstract
The scientific discovery of dark matter has been pursued in two very different methodological and epistemic contexts. A microphysical context centered around the laboratory detection of a new particle, and a macrophysical context based on the astronomical identification of a non-luminous gravitating component. The justification for the salience of methodological diversity is that these different methods are complementary ways to discovering aspects of the same entity. The weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) made this expectation scientifically credible by connecting a particle candidate to a cosmological abundance, experimental searches, and explanations of astronomical phenomena. What happens to this connection when the WIMP loses its central position? I analyze 201,627 NASA Astrophysics Data System records to examine the organization of research following the decline of WIMP prominence. Astrophysics and high-energy physics remain jointly dominant, while WIMP-related mentions decline in both fields and successor candidates receive different degrees of attention. Concept networks show that WIMP-related research remains central across the literature, even as cross-field connections become less concentrated around it. These indicators measure research attention; they do not establish what scientists would accept as a discovery. I interpret the findings through a framework distinguishing constitutive identification, cosmic attribution, explanatory adequacy, and the cross-domain identification needed to connect them. A particle, compact-object population, or gravitational theory can resolve different parts of the inherited problem, and a partial or multicomponent discovery can leave other parts open. 'Diverging paths' describes this branching of possible resolutions.
Related
- Indirect Dark Matter Detection in the Multi-Messenger Era: Experiments, Systematics, Anomalies, and Prospects for Discovery
- Cosmological extra dimensions can mimic dark matter I. Dark matter in galaxies
- Generalized Glauber theorem for dark-matter axion and graviton detection
- Enhanced dark matter quantum sensing via phase-space geometric interferometry
- To collapse or not to collapse: Halo evolution with self-interacting dark matter mass segregation
BibTeX
@misc{allzen2026diverging,
title = {{Diverging paths to dark-matter discovery}},
author = {Simon Allzén},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.14137},
eprint = {2610.14137},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.14137},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Diverging paths to dark-matter discovery
AU - Simon Allzén
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/09
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.14137
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.14137
AB - The scientific discovery of dark matter has been pursued in two very different methodological and epistemic contexts. A microphysical context centered around the laboratory detection of a new particle, and a macrophysical context based on the astronomical identification of a non-luminous gravitating component. The justification for the salience of methodological diversity is that these different methods are complementary ways to discovering aspects of the same entity. The weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) made this expectation scientifically credible by connecting a particle candidate to a cosmological abundance, experimental searches, and explanations of astronomical phenomena. What happens to this connection when the WIMP loses its central position? I analyze 201,627 NASA Astrophysics Data System records to examine the organization of research following the decline of WIMP prominence. Astrophysics and high-energy physics remain jointly dominant, while WIMP-related mentions decline in both fields and successor candidates receive different degrees of attention. Concept networks show that WIMP-related research remains central across the literature, even as cross-field connections become less concentrated around it. These indicators measure research attention; they do not establish what scientists would accept as a discovery. I interpret the findings through a framework distinguishing constitutive identification, cosmic attribution, explanatory adequacy, and the cross-domain identification needed to connect them. A particle, compact-object population, or gravitational theory can resolve different parts of the inherited problem, and a partial or multicomponent discovery can leave other parts open. 'Diverging paths' describes this branching of possible resolutions.
ER -