Unravelling the Universe one particle at a time

Dark Matter - II 

Hello readers, this article is in continuation with my previous article on dark matter. So, if you have not read it before I’d recommend you to do check it out. Without further ado, let’s begin.

We left the article with a series of unanswered questions. So, let’s pick the first one from the list. What can and cannot be dark matter? What are the possible candidates of dark matter? 

Dark Matter - A scientific bewilderment

What dark matter cannot be?

The abundant amount of light elements created during the big bang nucleosynthesis (production of nuclei other than those of the lightest isotope of hydrogen after the big bang during the earlier phases of the universe) can rule out the possibility that dark matter particles are baryonic (Baryons contain an odd number of quarks, minimum 3. Protons and neutrons are the most common example of baryonic particles). The nucleosynthesis depends strongly on the baryon-photon ratio. This is also supported by the observations of cosmic microwave background radiation.

1. The main baryonic candidates are the massive astrophysical compact halo object (MACHO) class of candidates. These mainly include brown dwarf stars, Jupiter-like planets, and 100 solar mass (1 solar mass = 1.989 * 10³⁰ Kg) black holes. Searches such as MACHO collaboration and EROS-2 have ruled out the possibility that these objects make up a significant fraction of dark matter in our galaxy.

   

   How MACHOS can focus light via gravitational lensing

   
   
2. Next in line with the particles that can be ruled out from the equation is relativistic neutrinos. Neutrinos are expected to have been produced profusely in the very initial stages of the universe. Similar to the microwave background radiation which are the fossil remnants of the hot radiation which characterised the dense phase of the early universe, we also expect fossil remnants of neutrinos which now form a background. With an estimated density of about 150/cm³, per species and this summed up over all the six species, we expect a fossil neutrino background with a number density of 1000/cm³. Even with this density, and mass as low as 0.1eV to 0.01 eV, it would account for less than a per cent of the missing dark matter.

   

   Cosmic neutrino background

   
   
3. There are a few other proposals that can be easily ruled out from basic astrophysical considerations. Highly relativistic protons trapped in halos of galaxies is one of them. Other rejected baryonic candidates are brown dwarfs, old white dwarfs, neutron stars, stellar-mass black holes, solid H₂, dense cold molecular clouds in galaxies, etc.

   

   Brown dwarf

   

   Ancient white Dwarf Star

   

   Neutron star

   

   A black hole weighing 70 solar masses

   
   

   

   Giant interstellar hydrogen iceberg

   
   

   

   Molecular clouds in the neighbouring WLM galaxy

   
   

What are some possible candidates for dark matter?

The range of ideas when it comes to what dark matter can be has no shortage. Serious candidates with masses ranging from 10^-5 eV to 10⁴ solar masses have been proposed. That’s a whooping range of masses of over 75 orders of magnitude!
As we have already discarded the notion of baryonic matter to be the dark matter, we shift our focus to non-baryonic matter. The non-baryonic candidates are basically elementary particles that are either not yet discovered or have non-standard properties. There are many propositions for the possible candidates. Many of them, like axions, neutralinos, gravitinos or composites these have been theorised. So, let’s look into them one by one.

1. A fraction of a second after the Big Bang, the universe was so hot that new particles and anti-particles were created and destroyed all the time. Calculations show that a stable particle of mass near 100 GeV and interacting with weak forces will leave just about the right amount of “leftovers” to account for the observed dark matter density. In particle physics, the Standard Model says that each particle has a heavier partner of different spin but similar interactions. The lightest of these particles is stable in many cases, which is an excellent dark matter candidate. Many theories which talk about higher dimensions, talk of different dimensions altogether in which these particles are curled up. The lightest of these particles, e.g., Kaluza-Klein particle, make for excellent dark matter candidates.

   

   Kaluza-Klein Theory

   
   
2. There are other possible dark matter candidates which do not fit into the above framework. One of these particles is the axions. An explanation for why axion is a good candidate goes beyond the scope of this article. Its explanation requires a pre-requisite knowledge of various types of symmetries which we would talk about in later articles.

   

   Newly found quasiparticles mimic hypothetical dark matter axions

   
   
3. Primordial black holes have also been suggested as a possible candidate for dark matter. Primordial black holes are hypothetical black holes that were formed after the big bang. It is found that black holes in the intermediate-mass range of one solar mass to a thousand solar mass and sub-lunar black holes in the range of 10¹⁷ – 10²¹ Kg can still produce all the dark matter. There are many constraints to that and the mathematics to it is still blurry, but we can be optimistic.

   

   Primordial black holes just after big bang

   
   
4. We have a few exotic candidates that have been suggested – WIMPzillas, gravitinos, gluinos, Q-balls, Q-nuggets, SIMPS, etc. There is a range of possible dark matter models. One other model is that baryons can be ‘packaged’ in non-luminous forms. There is also evidence that much of the dark matter may be made up of as yet undiscovered particles with several experiments all over the world trying to detect these. Many of these particles are in the preferred range of 100 GeV to a TeV. There could be dark matter objects or clumps made up of these particles bound by their mutual self-gravity and limits have already been placed on the abundance of these objects.

   

   Gravitino - Warm dark matter

   
   
5. There are several new classes of dark matter objects. One of the favoured dark matter candidates called the WIMPs (weakly interacting massive particles) has masses from about 10 GeV to 1 TeV. It can gravitate to form a new class of objects in dark matter halos or around the galactic centre. The role of dark matter in planetary formation and evolution has been considered by several authors.

   

   Theories of dark matter

   
   
   
6. Another alternate candidate to standard dark matter is the mirror matter-type dark matter. They have the right properties to be identified with the non-baryonic dark matter in the universe and make for an excellent candidate. I hate to say it but we are not ready for an in-depth discussion on mirror particles just yet.

Keeping in mind that I do not have to make my articles very lengthy, I would finish this topic for today. Needless, to say this will open new horizons to our discussions and give us a lot more fundamental words to use for the future. I hope the article kept you engaged, made you curious and fascinated you. Because these are the seeds for an inquiring mind that is ready for facing the challenges of Physics head-on. And even if today was a boring lecture, well, there would always be parts that you just do not like so much. Don't be disheartened and consider it one necessary evil. With that note, I would take your leave. Hope to see you soon.

 Auf Wiedersehen!

Footnote: I have written mass in terms of energy, more specifically electron volts(eV) in the whole article. This way of representing masses with electron-volts has its roots in the famous mass-energy equivalence equation, E = mc². Dividing 1 eV energy with c² gives the mass in kg.

1eV = 1.6 x 10-19 joules (J)

The various prefixes like K, M, G, and T. stands for kilo, mega, giga, and terra respectively, with the orders of magnitude being 10³, 10⁶, 10⁹, and 10¹², respectively.

It's all dark up there!

Dark Matter

 

Hello readers, it has not been a long time since we last talked about dark matter. However, one blog was not enough to cover what I wanted to convey. So, here is another one. But, before moving ahead, I would strongly recommend reading the articles I had posted on particles and dark matter and dark energy. Many topics are in continuation with the mentioned articles. So, without further ado, let’s dive deeper into the realm of mystery and the intriguing universe we live in.

One of the most intriguing things about the universe is, it is not dominated by ordinary baryonic matter (hadrons with spin number of the form n/2), but by a form of non-luminous matter that is as much as five times the amount of baryonic matter.

The universe is very nearly spatially flat, as is indicated by the measurement of cosmic background radiation, yet 70% of its mass is unaccounted for. Detailed measurements of the universe revealed a value that is 30% that of the critical mass density. The unaccounted matter called the dark matter has eluded us for decades. Several experiments to detect it has been running for several years without yielding a positive result.

What observational evidence do we have of the existence of dark matter?

Zwicky, in 1973 was trying to estimate the masses of large clusters of galaxies. The dynamic mass of the cluster, deduced from the motion of the galaxies, were at least a hundred times their luminous mass. This led Zwicky to conclude that most of the matter in such clusters is not made up of luminous objects like stars, or clusters of stars, but consists of matter that does not radiate.

Dark Matter Halos and Galaxy Mass Distributions

One more phenomenon that we discussed in one of my previous articles was how at a very large scale, the stars or other orbiting bodies, orbiting the galaxy at larger distances from the galactic centre, move around it at more or less the same velocity as objects much closer to the centre, contrary to what is expected. The rotational velocity is supposed to be proportional to r^-2, but here it’s almost constant as if the mass is somewhat related to the distance from the centre. This tells us mass is growing even after light dies out. As much as 90% of the galaxy mass is due to dark matter. Mass increases as we move farther and farther away from the central region. The relation between increasing mass and radius may seem strange to us but it would become clear as we move further. So, let’s mark it as one of our questions.

Difference between measured and calculated rotational velocities

To better emphasise our previous point, we have what we call ultra-diffusive galaxies, these have sizes of giants but the luminosity of dwarf galaxies. They have a large amount of dark matter but very few stars, making them difficult to detect due to their inherent faintness. An example could be the coma cluster.

Coma cluster

Apart from the velocity distribution of galaxies and galaxy clusters, there is other evidence pointing to the existence of dark matter. Extended emission in X-ray observations of clusters of galaxies indicates the presence of hot gas distributed throughout the cluster volume. From the observed emitted rays, luminosity can be measured. It depends on the density, temperature, and volume of the cluster. The mass required to hold hot gas in the cluster estimated requires a vast amount of dark matter.

The gravitational lensing map (blue), overlayed over the optical and X-ray (pink) data of the Bullet cluster. The mismatch of the locations of the X-rays and the inferred mass is undeniable.

The very presence of complex structures is also proof of the existence of dark matter. Cosmic Microwave Background anisotropy measurements indicate a model with predominant dark matter. The gravity from dark matter increases compaction, allowing the formation of structures.

The large scale structure of the Universe

How do we classify dark matter?

An important classification for dark matter particles is the ‘hot’ vs ‘cold’ classification.

Hot vs Cold Dark Matter

Hot dark matter particles are those that are described by a relativistic equation of state at the time when galaxies could just start to form. As far as I think, the immensely hot universe might have led to the creation of particles with low mass and high kinetic energy, making the velocities > 0.1 c (c = speed of light).

Cold dark matter is those that are described by a non-relativistic equation of state at the time when galaxies could just start to form.

Hot matter cannot cluster on galaxy scales until it has cooled to non-relativistic speeds. Warm dark matter is another hypothesised form of dark matter that has properties intermediate between those of hot dark matter and cold dark matter. The most common warm dark matter particles candidates are sterile neutrinos and gravitinos.

From observations from our current favourite model for the universe, the matter is mostly cold dark matter (with a large cosmological constant).

Do dark matter decay? What might be their half-life?

Dark matter has survived until the present day, accounting for almost 26% of the present energy density of the universe. It is still unknown whether they are stable or have a finite but very long lifetime. This could be a possibility because there is no theoretical basis predicting their stability.

Emission line-like spectral features at energy E equivalent to 3.5keV in the long exposure X-ray observations of several dark matter-dominated objects, such as the stack of 73 galaxy clusters and Andromeda and Perseus galaxy cluster has recently been observed. The spectral lines may indicate a decay of some sort. The possibility that this spectral feature may be the signal from decaying dark matter has piqued a lot of interest, and many dark matter models explaining this signal have been proposed.

 

Dark matter (X) annihilates into dark photons (A) which couple to Standard Model particles that eventually decay into photons

What can and can not be dark matter? What might be some of the possible candidates for dark matter? What is this new thing called mirror dark matter? What is our plan to detect dark matter particles? These are few questions that have yet not been answered. To keep this article short and brief, I would talk about these topics in my next article. The topic might be overwhelming at this point. But, I hope you liked the article.

Auf Wiedersehen!

Image Credits: Google Images

The Big Bang

Big Bang Theory

What is cosmology?

I started this blog to study and try to understand the various aspects of the universe. The name of our blog is thecosmonerds - a place designated for brains with similar interests. A question that still baffles many people as soon as they hear the term cosmology is, what does it mean? Cosmology is the study of the origin and formation of the universe. From the big bang (the theory we are going with and the blog’s topic) to its current state, and the future. It is the study of the large scale properties of the universe as a whole.

Big bang theory is the most acceptable theory when it comes to all the theories surrounding how the Universe originated. The two most important observations that led to the conclusion of an ever-expanding universe that originated from a singularity are namely, the Hubble expansion and the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation.

Hubble noticed an interesting observation while observing galaxies. He found that the galaxies are moving farther away from us. The farther the galaxy was, the greater was its velocity (now called the Hubble Flow.)  He established the linear relationship,

    v = H * r

where,    v = recession speed

               H = Hubble Constant

               r = radial distance

Finding the exact value of H is a difficult task as it involves measuring the distances of distant galaxies. It has been assigned a value of approximately 21.8 mm/s.ly.

It is natural to conclude, and hence, question; if the galaxies are moving farther apart, there must have been a time they were very close. How close were they? And most importantly, what caused them to move away? The energy released must have been enormous if the galaxies are still receding away from each other despite the gravitational attraction. Was there an explosion? If there was, there might be a factor that is constant throughout the universe.

The last inquiry leads us to the phenomenon called, Cosmic Background Radiation. The cosmic microwave background radiation is the leftover radiation from the Big Bang or the time when the universe began. It is known to be the light that has been in flight across the universe shortly after the universe was born. The light is now so red-shifted that it is in the microwave region of the electromagnetic spectrum. These radiations give the average temperature of the universe, i.e., 2.7 K. The universe had a temperature of 10³² K at the time of big-bang!

So, after briefly discussing the phenomenons that led to the conclusion, we are now brought back to our original topic of discussion, The Big Bang!

The universe began as a singularity, and as we have discussed in previous articles, physics breaks at singularities. So, we can’t exactly talk about the exact time at which the universe formed, say at, T = 0 s. What caused the biggest explosion that would ever happen? What was there before it, if there was a before or is the before even a viable possibility? These questions elude us. But, we can certainly talk about what happened a while later.

T ≈ 10^-43 s. The earliest time at which we could even begin to talk about time. This is the smallest duration of time, called the planck second, the time at which no smaller meaningful length can be validly measured. So, this is the time at which we can say anything meaningful about the development of the universe. It is at this moment that space and time had any physical meaning. The universe was so small that its spatial length was much smaller than that of a proton. It was immensely hot at a temperature of about 10³² K. Quantum fluctuations lay seeds for the universe as we know it.

T ≈ 10^-34 s. The universe had gone under a tremendous expansion increasing in size by a factor of about 10³⁰, The fluctuations have led the universe to become a hot soup of photons, quarks, and leptons at a temperature of 10²⁷ K. Still too hot for protons or neutrons to form.

T ≈ 10^-4 s. Quarks now combine to form protons and neutrons and their antiparticles. The photon is not strong enough to break them. The matter and antimatter particles annihilate and produce energy. For reasons yet unknown, there is a slight excess of matter, and this is the matter that would lead to the formation of galaxies, clusters of galaxies, superclusters of galaxies and us.

T ≈ 1 min. The universe has cooled down enough to allow low mass nuclei ²H, ³He, ⁴He, and ⁷Li. The relative primordial abundance of these light elements is a testimony to our theory. The radiation is present but still can’t move far without colliding with a nucleus. The universe is pretty much opaque at this point.

T ≈ 379000 y. The universe has a temperature of about 2970 K, and electrons can stick to bare nuclei to form atoms. The light is now free to move great distances and thus it begins its never-ending journey. This is what we earlier discussed as the Cosmic Background Radiation. Now, red-shifted enough to be in the microwave range of the electromagnetic spectrum.

T ≈ present. The universe is still expanding at speeds higher than even the speed of light. Leave alone expanding at a constant velocity, it is accelerating! :o Physicists attribute the rate of this expansion to the mysterious form of energy, called dark energy. The general outward motion of galaxies resulting from the expansion of energy is called the Hubble Flow. Apart from this velocity, the galaxies also have been found to have a peculiar velocity that is attributed to some localised attractive forces at work, called the Great Attractor. Calling it as some localised mass would be great injustice because whatever that is it is pulling our galaxy at a rate of 7.78 * 10¹² m/s. Impressive, right?

So, I would conclude this article at this point. It would not have been a difficult thing to notice that many interesting topics diverge from today’s discussion. Be it dark matter, dark energy, quantum fluctuations, or, the great attractor. It surely bores seeds for countless discussions. See you next time.

 Auf Wiedersehen!