Thunderbolts Forum v3.0

A team of researchers—Robert McGehee and Aaron Pierce of the University of Michigan and Gilly Elor of Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz in Germany—has now proposed a new candidate for dark matter: HYPER, or "HighlY Interactive ParticlE Relics."

In the HYPER model, some time after the formation of dark matter in the early universe, the strength of its interaction with normal matter increases abruptly—which on the one hand, makes it potentially detectable today and at the same time can explain the abundance of dark matter.

"Our central idea, which underlies the HYPER model, is that the interaction changes abruptly once—so we can have the best of both worlds: the right amount of dark matter and a large interaction so we might detect it," McGehee said.