While waiting for the Einstein Telescope, the future European hunter of gravitational waves, the collection of scientific data is already underway in the area of the former Sos Enattos mine in Lula (Nuoro).
An example is the Archimedes experiment, underway in the Sar-Grav laboratory at Sos Enattos, which aims to measure the interaction between the fluctuations of the electromagnetic vacuum and the gravitational field.
The first result is the prototype of the super sensitive balance intended for the Archimedes experiment and which could allow the discovery of particles called dark photons, which could constitute the so-called dark matter, i.e. the invisible and mysterious matter that constitutes 25% of the universe.
Published in The European Physical Journal Plus, the results of the study are the result of research coordinated by Enrico Calloni, of the National Institute of Nuclear Physics and the Federico II University of Naples and in which the Sapienza universities of Rome, Sassari and Cagliari, with the European Gravitational Observatory, the National Research Council and the Center for Theoretical Physics of the French University of Marseille.
"The scientific objectives of the Archimedes experiment revolve around the concept of 'vacuum', which in the context of quantum mechanics is actually anything but such (at least in the meaning usually associated with this term) - we read on the Infn website - the quantum vacuum is in fact equipped with its own energy, different from zero, and is characterized by incessant fluctuations, due to the continuous creation and destruction of particles and antiparticles. Such fluctuations can, at least in theory, produce interactions with macroscopic objects: Archimedes , in particular, aims to observe any interactions of the quantum vacuum with the gravitational field, and therefore its influence on the weight of bodies. To achieve this, it must operate in conditions of absolute seismic and anthropic silence, requirements guaranteed by the SOS Enattos site ( which for the same reasons is also considered ideal for hosting the Einstein Telescope, a future gravitational wave observatory".
Financed by the Sardinia Region, the Sar-Grav laboratory was created as part of a program agreement between the Sardinia Region, Infn, the Institute National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology, University of Sassari, and the Igea company, which manages the abandoned Sos Enattos mine.
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