Drs Kgashane Malatji and Johann Brummer were in Orsay, France for an experiment searching for a dark matter particle. The experimental collaboration is called New JEDI. iThemba LABS is one of the collaborating facilities, amongst others, and will host researchers from France at the Tandetron nuclear astrophysics H-line later in 2022. New JEDI is the acronym for New Judicious Experiment for Dark sectors Investigations and is currently set up in the hall of the Andromède accelerator. This is a scientific project supported by an international collaboration bringing together many laboratories: IJCLab (FR), GANIL (FR), University of Minnesota (US), NPI (CZ), LNS (IT), IAP (FR), iThemba LABS (SA) and others.
The first scientific objective of New JEDI is to confirm or deny the anomaly observed in the decay spectrum of the resonance at 18.15 MeV of 8Be by a team from MTA Atomki (HU). It results experimentally by the observation of an excess of counts at large angles (around 140°) between the electron and the positron emitted in pairs as a result of this decay. Since the process of creating electron-positron pairs by internal conversion does not allow the data to be described, the hypothesis that this anomaly is the signature of a Dark Boson has been raised and has led to much discussion within the international scientific community. In this hypothesis, this Dark Boson would act as the messenger of a fifth force of the Universe, and it would allow the interaction between ordinary matter (that which composes us but also the stars, the planets etc.) and the black sectors of the universe. In other words, if confirmed, this unexpected result could well be the first evidence for a new light gauge boson (mass estimated experimentally at 16.7 (6) MeV). It is, therefore, worth testing it by independent measurements, led by a new team, with a new instrument and with another accelerator. The first test experiments which were carried out in 2018 at ARAMIS-SCALP in Orsay made it possible to define the technology and geometry of the dedicated New JEDI device.
The necessary electronic developments, mounting and assembly were carried out at GANIL. The whole commissioning was carried out with the 3-MV Tandetron located in Rez (CZ) last June-July.
The following description of the experiment is from the source at:
https://nuclear.ijclab.in2p3.fr/en/dark-boson-new-jedi-at-andromede-for-a-first-experiment/
