Could Dark Matter Influence Nucleus Decay Beyond Spontaneity?

[Saul]

Return of the Ether?

- There are reasons to believe that the universe contains much unseen dark matter. If it exists, it might be as undetected particles.
- The word "spontaneous" in "spontaneous decay" makes the phenomenon sound as though it were an effect without a cause. There is an accepted cause, of course, but it is of a statistical nature and does not tell us, for example, why one particular atom of Isotope X should have decayed while the immediately neighboring atom of the same Isotope X did not.

Let us assume that there is a sea of undetected dark-matter particles all about us. If a proton or neutron within a nucleus is hit by such a particle, whether directly or not, it should either vibrate or be knocked out of its host nucleus, or the entire nucleus might be caused to fission. There be nothing "spontaneous" about the occurrence. It would simply be a particle-collision event in which one participating particle was not detected.

Diverse details could be attributed to the hypothetical energy spectrum of dark matter.

If this scenario is nonsensical, I would like to know why.

 

[Integral]

Let us assume that there is a sea of undetected dark-matter particles all about us. If a proton or neutron within a nucleus is hit by such a particle, whether directly or not, it should either vibrate or be knocked out of its host nucleus, or the entire nucleus might be caused to fission.

Isn't this self contradictory? If the "undetectable" matter caused vibration and perhaps even fusion of atomic nuclei, wouldn't we notice? Wouldn't that effect be delectable, therefore your dark matter would be detectable.

 

[Saul]

Yes we do detect, we do notice. But we attribute it to something else.