Could Dark Matter be another Universe living with us?

[JimD]

----------------- #1218 - Could Dark Matter be another Universe?

- Astronomers studying the evolution of the Universe are convinced that 95% of the Universe is unobservable with electromagnetic waves such as light. However, they can see with the effects of Gravity pulling and Entropy pushing the expansion of the Universe. Their conclusions are that 72% is Dark Energy and 23% Dark Matter. This review is of the search for Dark Matter particles. After all Ordinary Matter is made up of particles why not Dark Matter?

- Attachment: Big Bang

- The idea of the Big Bang is that the Universe started out as a single point of immense energy that started expanding. The energy expanded space and time at a very rapid rate. At one point the expansion of space was faster than the speed of light. Called Cosmic Inflation, it is space that is growing and not matter that is exceeding the Cosmic Speed Limit, which is the speed of light. The theory of Relativity is not violated when this Cosmic Inflation occurred.

- The Cosmic Inflation explains why the Universe is so uniform and homogeneous in all directions. It explains why the geometry of the Universe appears “flat” to us. It also means that the actual Universe is much, much bigger that the Observable Universe we see. The light over the Observable Universe horizon has not had enough time to reach us.
- After only nanoseconds the Cosmic Inflation slowed down to somewhat near the Universe expansion we see today. All the galaxies are moving away from each other as the space between them continues to expand. Gravity was stronger in the beginning because matter was closer together. The force of Gravity is inversely proportional to the distance of separation squared , ( F = G * M*m / r^2 ). The expansion rate was actually decelerating for the first 5 billion years due to Gravity. After that Entropy and Dark Energy started to become the dominate force as the expansion continued to dilute mass though expanding space. For the last 5 billion years Dark Energy has been accelerating the expansion of the Universe at an ever increasing rate. Entropy keeps increasing. Our Observable Universe keeps shrinking.

- In the first seconds of the Universe expansion, as the space cooled and became more rarefied, Quarks and Leptons and other fundamental particles of Ordinary Matter froze out of the energy. Remember, energy and mass are two states of the same thing according to E =m*c^2. Energy is the same as the product of mass and the speed of light squared. The speed of light is a Constant. “c^2” is 9,000,000,000,000,000 meters^2 / seconds^2. Mass is proportional to Energy. When things are proportional they can be turned into an equality with a Constant of Proportionality. There are many constants of proportionality in nature, called Natural Constants. The speed of light is one of those constants, c = 300,000,000 meters per second. Other constants include the charge of an electron, the Gravitational Constant, Planck’s Constant of Action, Alpha, the Fine Structure Constant, and a dozen more Natural Constants.

- After several minutes of space expansion and cooling protons and electrons froze out of the matter-energy plasma. After years of expansion protons and electrons combined to form neutral atoms. Only the light element atoms formed because the expansion was too fast, cooling too much, for heavier elements to combine. Only hydrogen, helium, lithium, deuterium elements existed for the first 100,000 years. The heavier elements in the Periodic Table had to wait for the stars to form and die in giant explosions of supernovae. The lighter elements make up most of the Universe and they are in the exact proportions that physicists would calculate given atomic structures and temperatures cooling that we can repeat in the laboratories.

- When neutral atoms of light elements first formed they released photons of Gamma Rays to expand throughout the expanding space. Before the neutral atoms formed the ionized atomic nuclei captured all the Gamma Ray photons preventing their escape from the plasma. Today these Gamma Rays have cooled to 2.7 Kelvin and we see them as Cosmic Microwave Background radiation, CMB. By studying the sound waves and harmonics present in this CMB blanket of radiation physicists can calculate that matter in the Periodic Table, Ordinary Matter, constitutes only 5% of the mass-energy in the Universe. By calculating the push of Entropy and the pull of Gravity the Universe must be 95% something else. Physicists don’t know what it is but matter pulls with gravity and energy pushes the expansion. Called Dark Matter and Dark Energy we only know that there is 3 times as much Dark Energy as Dark Matter. So 72% of the Universe is Dark Energy and 23% of the Universe is Dark Matter. Ordinary Matter that we are made of is a small residue of the mass-energy present.

- Ordinary Matter formed out of the energy of expansion. Maybe Dark Matter formed out of the Dark Energy of expansion. Science has not discovered any direct connections between them but matter does form out of energy. It could be like a parallel Universe that expanded along with our Ordinary Universe. Some new particles froze out to become Dark Matter just like the quarks, leptons, protons, neutrons froze out to become atoms. Dark Matter does interact with Gravity even though we can not see it because it does not interact with Electromagnetic energy like Ordinary Matter does. That is why it is called “Dark”.

- Visible evidence and observation exists for Dark Matter in the Bullet Cluster. The Hubble Space Telescope discovered two galaxy clusters that were colliding. A detailed picture was taken of the visible matter in the collision. Then the Chandra X-ray Space Telescope took a picture of the collision that showed X-ray emissions from the galaxies interstellar gas atoms that were colliding. This picture showed a shockwave going through the collision like a bullet. Dark Matter does not participate in this electromagnetic interaction and passes right through the collision unscathed. However, using gravitational lensing astronomers could identify the presence of Dark Matter through the bending of light from far off galaxy light that passed by the Bullet Cluster in our line of sight. When these two images are put together it becomes “visible” that the Dark Matter and Ordinary Matter are separated in the collision. In order to “see” this astronomers had to “see” with Gravity and “see” with X-rays, yet, it is direct observable evidence that Dark Matter exists in all the galaxies.

- Therefore, Dark Matter exists in the Milky Way Galaxy. We know this because stars in the outer orbits of our galaxy should be flying off like water droplets from a lawn sprinkler. But, they are not. Something much more massive than the stars we see is holding our galaxy together. But, what is it? It should be 5 times more abundant than Ordinary Matter so why can’t we find it? Science believes that Dark Matter is made of unknown particles. This is not hard to believe because we have discovered hundreds of initially unknown particles over the past 100 years.

- Most often science experiments made measurements that violated the Conservation of Energy. This indirect evidence existed for years and decades before the actual particles were discovered. Particles existed in theory only. Later experiments discovered Neutrinos. W and Z Bosons were discovered to explain the Weak Nuclear Force ( See footnote 1 for details.). Today we are trying to discover the Higgs Boson to explain the existence of mass. We are trying to discover the Graviton to explain the force of Gravity. So, why not, discover WIMPs to explain the existence of Dark Matter. WIMPs are Weakly Interactive Massive Particles that exist only in theory, so far.

- Again, the Conservation of Energy haunts us because if the Universe did maintain this symmetry then there should be just as many anti-particles in the Universe as particles. There should be as many anti-dark matter particles as well. For Ordinary Matter we have discovered that each of the anti-particles does exist. We can recreate them in the laboratories in very small amounts. However, somewhere there should be an equal amount to that of Ordinary Matter. Where is it? Whenever a particle and its anti-particle come in contact they instantaneously annihilate each other into a flash of Gamma Ray energy. Science does not have a good explanation for the dominance of Ordinary Matter over anti-matter in our Universe. Much was lost in annihilation during the early years of the Universe. But, somehow this residue of Ordinary Matter and Dark Matter survived. That’s us.

- So, we thing that WIMPs and anti-WIMPs must exist. We think nearly one billion WIMPs have passed through you body in the last few minutes. Obviously, WIMPs are hard to detect because you did not feel anything. WIMPs do not interact with the electromagnetic forces that make up the atoms in your body. They pass right through unscathed. They do interact with Gravity, but, Gravity is so much weaker than the other forces that it takes enormous mass to see its effects.

- Dark Matter is 6 times more abundant than Ordinary Matter. It likely is not a single particle but another whole complicated set of particles similar to that with Ordinary Matter. How can we detect them? Maybe by detecting WIMP and anti-WIMP annihilations? Maybe by detecting the rare collision of a WIMP particle with an atomic nuclei? Maybe it will show itself in high energy particle accelerator collisions? There are a dozen experiments trying to achieve these detections. They go by the names and acronyms of:

--------- CDMS, DAMA, CoGeNT, PAMELA, XENON, MALORAMA,
--------- CERN, ICECUBE, KAMIOKANDE, … do a search and I am certain it will lead to even more experiments. Stay tuned. An announcement will be made shortly. One of these experiments is bound to make a new discovery. It could open a window into a whole new Universe. It could be living with us and we don’t even know it. Amazing!
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- (1) If you want to learn more request Reviews #1204, #14, #718, #594, #1075 on Dark Matter, #837 on Weighing Galaxies Using Hot Gas, or #692 Dark Matter and Blackholes. Also, a great video by searching ‘Mark Trodden, Cosmology at University of Pennsylvania.
(2) Radioactive Beta Decay discovered in the early 1900’s began the search for missing particles. Enrico Fermi proposed that new particles must exist to explain atomic nuclei decay. For his equations using the Conservation of Energy to balance a new particle must exist to carry the binding nuclear force. It acted similar to photons carrying the electromagnetic force but had to be very heavy in order to account for its limited range inside the dimensions of the atom. To get the observed ½ life of radioactive isotopes the particle had to be 10 times heavier than a proton, about 100,000 million electron volts. In the 1980’s the W and Z Bosons were discovered as carriers of the Weak Nuclear Force. Dark Matter particles may be comparable in being too heavy for us to easily detect. Very high energies are needed. These high energies exist in Cosmic Rays and in particle accelerators like the LHC in CERN.
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707-536-3272, [email protected] Monday, November 1, 2010

[JuliaB]

Those of you who are interested in straight science, especially more technical and specialized information such as this (and the previous post on the higgs boson) --that's great! However, please remember you are posting in a category called "science and spirit", I ask you to remember to offer a layperson summary of more technical information with preferably a link to the full article. It would be even better if you could make a personal commentary about why you are interested in the subject and how it might relate to your philosophical or spiritual leanings.

thank you!
Julia
Science and Spirit Moderator