LZ experiment sets new record in search for dark matter

Amazing stuff! Where is the WIMP hiding? More success in narrowing down the possible hiding place.

What if these hypothetical particles, i.e. WIMPs, do not exist?

"... New results from the world’s most sensitive dark matter detector, LUX-ZEPLIN, have narrowed down possibilities for one of the leading dark matter candidates: weakly interacting massive particles, or WIMPs. ...
The collaboration found no evidence of WIMPs above a mass of 9 gigaelectronvolts/c2 (GeV/c2). (For comparison, the mass of a proton is slightly less than 1 GeV/c2.) The experiment's sensitivity to faint interactions helps researchers reject potential WIMP dark matter models that don't fit the data, leaving significantly fewer places for WIMPs to hide. ...
Dark matter, so named because it does not emit, reflect or absorb light, is estimated to make up 85% of the mass in the universe but has never been directly detected, though it has left its fingerprints on multiple astronomical observations. ...
LZ uses 10 tonnes of liquid xenon ..."

"LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) collaboration ... hunts for dark matter from a cavern nearly one mile underground at the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) in Lead, South Dakota. ..."

LZ experiment sets new record in search for dark matter | symmetry magazine "New results from the world’s most sensitive dark matter detector put the best-ever limits on particles called WIMPs, a leading candidate for what makes up our universe’s invisible mass."

LZ Experiment at SURF Sets New Record in Search for Dark Matter (original news release) "The experiment’s new results explore areas never searched before and further limits what WIMPs could be."

LZ’s central detector, the time projection chamber, in a surface lab clean room before delivery underground.