Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by pavel_lishin 4005 days ago
Nitpick: I don't believe neutrinos are classified as WIMPs, since they are either massless, or have an incredibly small mass.
1 comments

Neutrinos conclusively have mass since they experience flavor oscillations (if they were massless that would be impossible). Current estimates are that the total mass of all flavors of neutrinos is a fraction of 1 eV (less than a billionth the mass of a proton).

Anyway, neutrinos aren't generally called "WIMPs" because they already have a name, the term "WIMP" is generally reserved for new particles that have yet to be directly observed.

Does the "massive" in WIMP mean "have a mass" or "higher mass than other particles"?
It means it has non-zero mass. There are some theories of dark matter which would involve particles having thousands of times less mass than even a neutrino.