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SOHAM PAL
1. Introduction
Dark matter is hypothesized to make up about 26% of the known universe. The rest of
the universe is supposedly composed of ordinary matter (around 5%) and the so-called dark
energy (roughly 69%).
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However so far we have not been able to get direct visual evidence of dark matter. Then
why does it form such an important part of the model of the universe? Though not visible
directly, the existence of dark matter is inferred through its gravitational influence on surrounding matter, on radiation and the finally by its influence on the large scale structure of
the universe and this influence makes dark matter an essential ingredient in the model of
the universe.
Dark matter was originally hypothesized to account for the large discrepancy in the mass
of large scale objects as calculated from their gravitational effects and their mass as calculated from the directly observable matter that those objects contain.
Most of the current astrophysical detection methods are based on observing some kind of
electromagnetic radiation. However this fails in the case of dark matter. This is because
dark matter does not emit or absorb any kind of electromagnetic radiation at any significant
levels. But theres reason to hope. The LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave
Observatory) experiment aims to directly detect the gravitational waves predicted by Einsteins general theory of relativity. It has been theorized that gravitational collapse of dark
matter will produce gravitational waves. If the LIGO experiment detects such waves then
that would be a strong evidence in the favor of the existence of dark matter and would also
give us some knowledge about the properties of dark matter.
In this review, I will briefly discuss the history of dark matter research, give a brief overview
of the competing theories of dark matter and conclude with what could be possible future
in dark matter research.
Zwicky was studying the Coma cluster of galaxies in 1933. He used the virial theorem to
compare the clusters total mass based on the motions of galaxies near its edge and the total
mass based on the number of the galaxies and the total brightness of the galaxy. His calculations showed that the total mass of the cluster is about 400 times of what was accounted
for by the directly observable sources. This was the first true evidence that some unseen
form of matter exists. Zwicky coined the term dunkle materie or dark matter for this new
form of matter.
Zwickys calculations were not totally flawless. Modern calculations show that Zwickys
predictions were off by more than an order of magnitude. However his calculations were
correct enough to firmly establish the idea that there is some unseen form of matter, which
in all likelihood is very different from ordinary matter.
And then in 1939, Horace Babcock used galaxy rotation curves to show that the mass-toluminosity (ML) ratios of galaxies are far off from 1. A galaxy rotation curve (also called a
velocity curve) is a plot of the measured magnitude of the orbital velocities of visible stars or
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gas in that galaxy versus their radial distance from that galaxys center. The measurements
reported by Babcock showed that the orbital speed of stars and gas increases radially. Given
the observed mass distributions in galaxies, the orbital speed should decline at increasing
distances in the same way as it does in other systems with most of their mass at the center.
This suggested that the ML ratio increases radially and is anything but 1. Though Babcock
did not attribute the discrepancy to some form of unseen matter, in hindsight it appears
that dark matter is probably the chief culprit here.
Figure 2. Rotation curve of a typical spiral galaxy. The dotted line shows
the theoretical prediction and the solid line shows the observational data.
After a couple of decades of doldrums, first conclusive evidence in the support of dark
matter was provided in the late 1960s and early 1970s by the American astronomer Vera
Rubin and her co-worker Kent Ford. Rubin discovered that most stars in spiral galaxies orbit
at roughly the same speed. This implied that the mass densities of the galaxies were uniform
beyond the observational boundaries. Rubins calculations showed that most galaxies must
contain about 6 times as much unseen mass as could be accounted for by the visible sources.
Based on her work and that of others galaxies were classified into three main groups:
Low-surface-brightness (LSB) galaxies: These are supposed to be dominated
by dark matter. One extreme example of which would be the VIRGOHI21 in the
Virgo Cluster. VIRGOHI21 has no visible stars and is considered to be made almost
entirely of dark matter. It is estimated that the VIRGOHI21 has 1000 times more
dark matter than ordinary matter.
Spiral galaxies These have a dark matter halos which extend to distances far greater
than the visible boundaries of the galaxies. The Milky Way, our home galaxy, supposedly has 10 times more dark matter than ordinary matter.
Elliptical galaxies Many of these show evidence for high dark matter content via
strong gravitational lensing, however the situation of elliptical galaxies are not completely understood at the present.
And then there are galaxies like the NGC3379 which show no evidence of dark matter.
Most theorists agree that dark matter is either composed of supersymmetric light (as in
less massive) particles or weakly interacting massive particles or WIMPs, that interact thorough gravitational and weak forces, making them extremely hard to detect.
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Though there are many alternatives to the WIMPs/SUSY theories, only a few of them
have managed to gain some traction. Of these the most promising one is the Hidden Valley
theory which says that the dark matter exists in parallel world that is completely made up
of dark matter particles and that can only interact with the visible, ordinary matter world
via gravity.
However most theorists agree on that dark matter is chiefly non-baryonic in origin. though
there are certain astronomical object such as massive compact halo objects (MACHO) that
may be composed of dark matter. MACHOs are baryonic, but contrary to expectation emit
little to no electromagnetic radiation, leading us to postulate that maybe they are made up
of dark matter. However such baryonic dark matter constitutes a very small portion of the
supposed amount of dark matter in the universe.
Originally neutrinos were thought to be possible dark matter particles. Neutrinos interact
very weakly with ordinary matter, making them ideal candidates for dark matter particles.
However unlike WIMPs, neutrinos are WILPs or weakly interacting light particles. Limits
imposed by the large-structure of the universe and high red-shift galaxies lead scientists to
conclude that neutrinos can only make up a very minuscule portion of dark matter.
The proposed dark matter particles can be divided into three categories based on how fast
were they moving during the early stages of the universe. The parameter used is called the
free streaming length which is the distance the particles moved before slowing down due to
the expansion of the galaxy.
Cold Dark Matter (CDM): CDM particles have free-streaming lengths much
smaller than a protogalaxy.
Warm Dark Matter (WDM): WDM particles have free-streaming lengths similar
to a protogalaxy. A yet-to-be-discovered variant of the neutrino, called the sterile
neutrino, is the postulated WDM candidate.
Hot Dark Matter (HDM): HDM particles have free-streaming lengths much larger
than a protogalaxy. Neutrinos are HDM candidates.
Though there are certain modified gravity theories, such as the Scalar-Tensor-Vector Gravity (STVG) that require the existence of WDM, the astrophysical evidence is overwhelmingly
in favor of CDM, that is most research now agree that dark matter is mostly cold. The proposed components of dark matter are:
Axions: These are light SUSY particles that can annihilate themselves. Though
they havent been detected yet, the existence of axions solves the Srong CP problem
in QCD. Also the self-annihilation can produce by-products like gamma rays and
neutrinos which we can detect and thus indirectly observe dark matter.
WIMPs: There are currently no known particle that exhibit the property that is
expected from a WIMP, but many beyond-the-standard-model theories predict their
existence. These are the most promising dark matter candidates. There have been
claims about detecting WIMPs, but such claims have been mostly rejected.
MACHOs: As mentioned earlier, these form the baryonic dark matter. But most
experiemnts have ruled out MACHOs as dark matter candidates.
RAMBOs: Robust associations of massive baryonic objects. These are clusters
made of brown dwarfs or white dwarfs. Some scientists consider them to be dark
matter candidates.
Most of the current research on CDM is based on the -CDM model. I will discuss this
model in greater detail in the following section.
4. -CDM
Ever since Hubble, we have known that we live in an expanding universe. The FriedmannLemaitre-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) metric is an exact solution of Einsteins field equations
of general relativity that describes a homogeneous, isotropic expanding or contracting universe that may be simply connected or multiply connected. This makes the FLRW metric
a particularly good choice for the description of our universe. The -CDM model assumes
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that general relativity is the correct theory of gravity on cosmological scales and uses the
FLRW metric in conjunction with the Friedmann equations and the cosmological equations
of state to describe the observational universe from the inflationary epoch to the present
and beyond. The in the name refers to the sometimes-infamous-but-mostly-famous Cosmological Constant. The cosmological constant was originally introduced by Einstein to
describe a static universe. Later, when it was discovered that the universe is expanding, the
cosmological constant was dropped from Einsteins field equations. However research in the
1990s showed that a positive cosmological constant is required to account for the expansion
of the universe. This led to the -CDM model. The -CDM model is frequently referred to
as the standard model of Big Bang cosmology, because it is the simplest model that provides
a reasonably good account of the following properties of the cosmos:
the existence and structure of the cosmic microwave background,
the large-scale structure in the distribution of galaxies,
the abundances of hydrogen (including deuterium), helium, and lithium,
the accelerating expansion of the universe observed in the light from distant galaxies
and supernovae.
The -CDM model has made a number of successful predictions in recent years. The most
notable among these are
the existence of the baryon acoustic oscillation feature, discovered in 2005 in the
predicted location,
the statistics of weak gravitational lensing, first observed in 2000 by several teams,
the polarization of the CMB, discovered in 2002 by DASI,
the 2015 Plank data agree with the predictions of -CDM.
However, like most theoretical models, the -CDM model isnt without its problems. The
most important problem so far is that we havent yet detected any dark matter particle.
Another important problem is though the -CDM predictions match successfully to the
large scale observational data, small scale (sub-galaxy) predictions leave a lot to be desired.
For example the -CDM predicts too many dwarf galaxies and too much dark matter in the
innermost regions of the galaxies.
But, there is ongoing research to extend and refine the -CDM model to alleviate these
discrepancies with observational data. Researchers are trying to extend -CDM by adding
cosmological inflation, quintessence and other elements that are current areas of speculation
and research in cosmology. Most theorists hope that like the standard model of particle
physics, the -CDM model, in one form or the other, will be able to give a satisfactory
picture of the cosmos.
5. Detection of Dark Matter: Present Endeavors
Dark matter plays a very important role in the inflationary model of the universe. It is
therefore quite a matter of urgency that we detect dark matter. And fortunately quite a few
experiments are going that aim to detect dark matter, directly or indirectly.
5.1. Direct Detection. Direct detection of dark matter can be done in two ways. One by
detecting the huge number of WIMPs/axions that supposedly pass through the surface of the
earth and the other, artificially producing them in colliders. Most of the current experiments
are trying the former approach. The Axion Dark Matter eXperiment (ADMX) centered at
the University of Washington is a huge collaborative effort between researchers worldwide
to detect axions. For the detection of WIMPs we have underground laboratories at the
Stalwell mine in Australia, Soudan mine in the US, SNOLAB in Canada, Grand Sasso National Laboratory in Italy, Canfrac Underground Laboratory in Spain, Boulby Underground
Laboratory in the UK, Deep Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory in the US
and the Particle and Astrophysical Xenon Detector in China.
5.2. Indirect Detection. The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is searching for gamma
rays produced by the decay and annihilation of Majorana WIMPs. Also there are ground
based gamma-ray telescopes which are being used for the same purpose. Also there are high
energy neutrino detectors like AMANDA, IceCube and ANTARES that are looking for high
energy neutrinos produced by the scattering of WIMPs of ordinary matter particles. And
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as I mentioned in the introduction, theres the LIGO experiment which is trying to detect
gravitational waves that can be produced by the collapse of dark matter.
6. Alternative theories
Cold dark matter (-CDM) is not the only way to resolve the observed astrophysical
discrepancies. There are competing theories that have been successful in resolving this
discrepancies to varying degrees. Here I will discuss a few of the most promising ones.
6.1. Mass in extra dimensions. This is like the Hidden Valley model. In this multidimensional theory, of all the four fundamental forces, gravity is the only one that has an
effect across all the various extra dimensions. This explains the relative weakness of the
gravitational force as compared to the other forces. Dark matter could then be a candidate
that lives in the extra dimensions and interacts with ordinary matter only via gravity.
6.2. Topological defects. Dark matter could consist of primordial defects (defects originating with the birth of the universe) in the topology of quantum fields, which would contain
energy and therefore gravitate.
6.3. Modified gravity. One modified theory of gravity, the STVG proposed by John Moffat
requires the presence of WDM particles. STVG is actually a successor Mordehai Milgroms
Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND).
MOND has been successful in explaining some features of galactic structures. But the
problem with MOND is that it is non-relativistic. Moffat proposed STVG to bring MOND
in line with Einsteins general relativity. In this regard theres one prominent alternative to
STVG. It is TeVeS or Tensor-Vector-Scalar Gravity, proposed by Jacob Bekenstein.
Another group proposed the dark-fluid hypothesis, where dark matter and dark energy
were replaced with a single form of energy, the dark fluid.
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6.4. Scale relativity. This is a combination of fractal spacetime theory and general relativity, introduced Laurent Nottale. This theory suggests that potential energy arises due to
fractality of spacetime , accounting for the mass discrepancies.
7. Conclusion
Though we havent yet satisfactorily detected dark matter, dark matter is one of the
chief ingredients of the simplest and most elegant model of the universe. Dark matter is
still a highly relevant field of research. Actually its more relevant now than ever before.
The discovery of the Higgs particle completed and validated the standard model of particle
physics, but left us with a lot of unanswered questions. Now it is the time for aggressive
research in beyond-the-standard-model domains. Dark matter is one of the most prominent
beyond-the-standard-model topics. It has got a rich history behind it with contributions
from many different fields of physics. Discovery of dark matter particles will help us to
answer many of the questions that the standard model could not and also give us a more
complete picture about the nature of gravity and of the universe that we live in. And
despite the presence of many competing theories, dark matter still provides the most simplest
explanation of the astrophysical observations, and moreover does not suffer from many of the
computational and theoretical shortcomings of the other theories. I would like to conclude by
saying that dark matter is a currently the best candidate to explain many of the astrophysical
observations and is therefore a very exciting and promising field of research.
8. References
Planck 2013 results. 1. Overview of products and scientific results. Astronomy and
Astrophysics, vol 1303, p. 5062.
On the Masses of Nebulae and of Clusters of Nebulae. F. Zwicky, Astrophysical
Journal, vol. 86, p. 217.
http://home.cern/about/physics/extra-dimensions-gravitons-and-tiny-black-holes.
An Introduction to the Science of Cosmology. D. Raine, T. Thomas IOP Publishing 2001, p. 30.
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