What is the connection between dark energy and dark matter?

[gathrey]

I was wondering what kinds of experiments we are doing to find out what DARK MATTER and DARK ENERGY is and where there being preformed

 

[ohwilleke]

Experiments is probably not quite the right word. Dark energy and dark matter are both theories supported by increasingly accurate astronomical observations (WMAP, CMB, Hubble, etc.). In the case of dark energy, the latest developments are based on estimates of the Hubble Constant based on red shift observations involving very distant objects. In the case of dark matter, the main lines of evidence of observations of galaxy scale dynamics of stellar objects, lensing at a galactic scale and WMAP/CMB predictions.

Particle accellerators, of course, constantly look for new kinds of stuff using higher and higher energies. Dark matter proponents argue to current technology isn't up to the task of producing dark matter in accellerators.

The closest you get to experiments is analysis of the Pioneer 10 and 11 data (and data from other deep space probes) which have not acted as one would expect given standard gravitational laws, although the discrepencies are modest and the analysis is more complex than one would like for a definitive proof of new physics.

BTW, this topic is usually found in eitehr General Astronomy or GR, Celestrial AStronomy is generally used to discuss the solar system.

 

[SpaceTiger]

Experiments is probably not quite the right word.

For dark matter, it's a perfectly acceptable word. Here is an example. There are a lot of dark matter searches going on right now, but it's difficult because we can only guess as to what the particles might be.

You may be right about dark energy, though, I've not heard of any explicit searches for it. It may be too soon. We're still trying to quantify its observational properties.

 

[Chronos]

In addition to the LHC, a number of dark matter detection schemes are in progress or on the drawing board - cosmic positron experiments (PAMELA, AMS2, HEAT), high energy neutrinos from the sun (ANTARES, ICECUBE), and gamma rays (GLASST, HESS, VERITAS). There is also considerable speculation that dark energy and dark matter are coupled, perhaps even different aspects of the same fundamental entity. So it is conceivable identification of CDM would also reveal the nature of dark energy. Some examples:

http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0406056
Casimir Energy Density at Planck Time: Cosmic Coincidence or Double Solution to the Cosmological Dark Energy Problem?

http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0404170
Dark Energy and dark matter of the universe from one-loop renormalization of riccion

http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0401031
Scalar field potentials for cosmology

http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0402067
CMB constraints on interacting cosmological models

http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0309671
N-body simulations for coupled dark energy: halo mass function and density profiles