Apparently We're Looking For Dark Photons Now

I am not a theoretical physicist. Shocking, right? But I like to think I have a greater knowledge and appreciation for the subject than the average person. I've read some books, I occasionally peruse science news websites. But I had never heard of dark photons until today. Sure, they're still theoretical, but the fact that we're confident enough in their existence to actually spend money searching for them... I'm skeptical.

But anyway, yes, we're searching for dark photons. And we're doing it by shooting antimatter at a diamond. Science is weird, but it's also pretty cool. 

I guess the better question is why are we looking for something called a dark photon anyway? Well, if you follow astrophysics at all, you'll know that most of the universe is not actually visible. The matter we see? Only about 10% of the universe's mass. The rest is so-called dark matter/energy. And you'll also know that we've had absolutely no luck in figuring out what either of those things actually are. If dark photons are a thing, and that's a big if, they could help us detect dark matter and help us figure out what it is. In addition, the existence of dark photons would mean the existence of a fifth fundamental force beyond gravity, electromagnetism, and the weak and strong nuclear forces. That's right, the fifth fundamental force would be... dark electromagnetism. 

I don't want to downplay the work these people are doing, and obviously, if they're successful, that would be really cool and would change our viewpoint of the universe, but these names are terrible.