Ok, first Dark Matter and now Hidden Photons...

Here's the article from the Physics arXiv blog: How To Hunt For Hidden Photons, so I remind myself of the steps of the Scientific Method:

Problem: "The trouble is that galaxies do not contain enough visible mass to generate the gravity necessary to hold them together. Without this extra mass, galaxies ought to fly apart."

Research: From the article "theoretical physicists attempt to create mathematical models of this kind of universe, they find something interesting."

Hypothesis:

Currently - "Some kind of force must be holding galaxies together. So astrophysicists imagine that galaxies must be filled with invisible, dark matter that provides the necessary extra tug."

From the article - "Dark matter particles must interact with each other in some way and the mediator of this kind of exchange would be a photon-like particle. So the universe must also be streaming with so-called hidden photons."

Forgive my naivette in the area: I thought the nature of photons stipulated that they are NOT hidden!

Test Hypothesis: Basically, get behind a wall and measure if any photons penetrate and how many. It gets stranger: ordinary photons must interact with hidden photons and oscillate between the extremes, and vice versa! This is the realm of Quantum Mechanics.

Data Analysis: Going to require a computer with a lot of server time and much, much coding!

Conclusion: TBD (to be determined)

Retest: TBDACV (to be determined after conclusion validated)