What is dark matter and what effects does it have?

[SpaceTiger]

I would think that if DM were massive particles, then you would get all the various kinds of distributions that we see of the luminous matter.

It was just explained why this isn't the case. If you're not understanding, please be specify which parts are confusing you.

 

[vincentm]

Thanks for the info guys i have a better understanding of what dark matter is theorized to be. Also, is dark matter also factored into the Hubble constant regarding the expansion of the universe, mainly the space between galaxies that are receding from one another?

 

[-Job-]

I was going to propose that if there were more than 3 dimensions of space, then dark matter may be supposed to exist in there, but wouldn't radiation emitted from matter in a fourth or fifth dimension also propagate through our 3 dimensions? I'm thinking it would, so that doesn't solve anything.

 

[Garth]

I was going to propose that if there were more than 3 dimensions of space, then dark matter may be supposed to exist in there, but wouldn't radiation emitted from matter in a fourth or fifth dimension also propagate through our 3 dimensions? I'm thinking it would, so that doesn't solve anything.

There are theories that suggest Dark Energy is a form of gravitation leaking through from other branes, situated in the other dimensions, but Dark Matter appears to be situated in this universe (brane), we just can't find it, perhaps the next generation of accelerators?

Garth

 

[SpaceTiger]

Thanks for the info guys i have a better understanding of what dark matter is theorized to be. Also, is dark matter also factored into the Hubble constant regarding the expansion of the universe, mainly the space between galaxies that are receding from one another?

The Hubble constant is calculated directly by measuring the distances and redshifts of galaxies, so dark matter doesn't really factor in.

 

[-Job-]

Garth, on the topic of other dimensions, suppose i live in a two dimensional plane in a three dimensional system. I am able to move in four directions within this plane of mine. I can't experience the third dimension so i don't have proof that it exists. Suppose my plane is parallel to the x and y-axis and that it intercepts the z-axis at z=10. I can move around the plane but my z-coordinate is always the same. Consider a particle in this 3D system with coordinate Z=11. This particle is outside my plane, my "universe", so i can't interact with it. However, suppose this same particle is moving so that it intersects my plane. Then, i might be hanging around in my plane and all of the sudden this particle would pop-in and pop-out of existence. I would be able to detect it once its z-coordinate reached z=10, but only for a very short period of time.
Suppose i live in a 3-dimensional cube (or maybe any 3D-body), and that this cube is parallel to the x, y and z axis, and intersects the w-axis (a fourth dimension) at w=10. I can move around in my cube but my w-coordinate never changes. Suppose there's a particle with w-coordinate w=11. This particle is outside my cube so i can't interact with it. Suppose this particle is moving along the w-axis so that it intersects my cube. This particle will intersect my cube at w=10 but be outside it immediatly at w=9. Then, i might be hanging around in my cube and all of the sudden this particle would pop-in and pop-out of existence. If there's more than 3 dimensions how come we don't see particles popping into existence at a point x,y,z and then immediatly vanishing?

 

[Garth]

Okay - in very general terms this is the idea behind brane theory. That in a higher dimensional space three dimensional + time membranes exist that occasionally collide with each other. The collision is what we experience as a 'big bang' - I say a big bang because there are many of them and consecutive collisons are interspersed by billions of years.

In your description, let's take the 2D plane in the higher 3D space as that is easier to visualise, the plane is infinitely thin in the z-dimension and so the intersection with another particle 'just passing through' will be over in a flash, an infinitely short flash, so would we (the inhabitants of the 2D 'flatland') actually detect it?

In the mutli-brane explanation for DE gravitation is as powerful as the other forces in the other brane but only weakly leaks into our own, except on the largest scales when it appears stronger and is interpreted as DE.

These ideas are good fun and can be dressed up with fancy mathematics, they sometimes make testable predictions (although only ambiguously) and so are just counted as 'scientific'. However, I think they are no more than that, just 'good fun'.

Garth

 

[Mike2]

You should note first that the term Unruh effect is used for an effect that arises in Rindler spacetime which contains a horizon. The gravitational analogue of the Unruh effect is the Hawking effect in a Schwarzschild spacetime, which contains also a horizon. These effects are about thermal distributions of radiation, which make it possible to define a temperature and an entropy for horizons. However, something similar should occur in scenarions without an horizon, due to the difference in the definition of particles between inertial and non-inertial observers, but the radiation field should not be thermal. As far as I understand all this stuff, this radiation field is a bath of photons, and is not localized; it takes place in every point of the vacuum. On the other hand there are some other problems to deal with if you postulate that dark matter is made of photons, most of them already mentioned in this thread.

I'd have to wonder if they were real photons. For if they were, then after scattering off some accelerating object, it would continue to have effects on nearby non-accelerating objects. Since the nearby non-accelerating objects do not feel the scattered photon (they feel nothing at all), then these particles that cause the temperature of the Unruh effect cannot be real. I suspect they are virtual particle. Perhaps the virtual particle pairs (the ZPE) remain separated for a longer period of time before recombining so that they can make their gravity felt before recombining. Or does an accelerating object have an effect on nearby things. I don't know.

 

[EL]

I would think that if DM were massive particles, then you would get all the various kinds of distributions that we see of the luminous matter.

I'm sorry but that's not the case, as numerous N-body simulations of DM distributions in galaxies show. The reason is, as mensioned before, that DM doesn't couple to photons very well. (Which is why it is called DM.)

 

[EL]

My problem with the nature of DM is that it is all so speculative. It has not been identified in the laboratory even after about forty years of intense investigation.

But according to most models we should not have seen it yet. Maybe we'll discover it in LHC, and if we don't there will still be a large piece of the parameter space left to investigate.

First find the DM particle, then measure its properties and then see whether those properties fit the observations. Then and only then can we be confident that we know what we are talking about.

Sure, and that's what so exciting about LHC. If we are lucky, maybe we'll find something.

 

[Mike2]

I'm sorry but that's not the case, as numerous N-body simulations of DM distributions in galaxies show. The reason is, as mensioned before, that DM doesn't couple to photons very well. (Which is why it is called DM.)

I only read the abstract, IIRC, and it only mentioned how galaxies condensed from the gas left by the BB. But are you trying to tell me that they are using the energy lost by photons in their N-body simulations of galaxy collision models? It seems to me that losing energy by emitting photons (if that were a significant effect) would just cause things to aggregate to the center more easily (as though gravity were stronger for lumious material). If anything I would think that with no photon coupling, the wild gyrations that gravity plays on colliding galaxies would be more pronounce for DM than for baryonic matter, since there is no dampening effect caused by the energy lost from photon emissions. I would expect to see more asymmetric dispersed patterned of DM in colliding galaxies. Is this seen in the data?

 

[EL]

But are you trying to tell me that they are using the energy lost by photons in their N-body simulations of galaxy collision models?

What? Using energy lost by photons? Collisions?

The thing goes something like this:
When simulating the formation of a galaxy you must use the properties of the matter content as input. The difference between the properties of ordinary matter and DM is that ordinary matter couples to photons and DM does not. This means that ordinary matter can loose energy through radiation and hence more easily accumulate in the centre of the galaxy (in the shape of a disk). DM however cannot loose it's energy in any simple way, and is hence not as willing to lump into a disk, but rather distributes itself in a spherical halo, with the density only depending on the radial distance.

 

[Mike2]

What? Using energy lost by photons? Collisions?
The thing goes something like this:
When simulating the formation of a galaxy you must use the properties of the matter content as input. The difference between the properties of ordinary matter and DM is that ordinary matter couples to photons and DM does not. This means that ordinary matter can loose energy through radiation and hence more easily accumulate in the centre of the galaxy (in the shape of a disk). DM however cannot loose it's energy in any simple way, and is hence not as willing to lump into a disk, but rather distributes itself in a spherical halo, with the density only depending on the radial distance.

OK, so we both understand that losing energy due to photon emission make orbits decay so it more easily clumps in the center. I fail to see why this should help in the process of forming a disk. Perhaps a few sentences would clear this up for me, thank you.

But my point is still open, have they specifically, or can they, looked at how DM would distribute itself in the case of galaxy collisions? We already know that this produces wild distribution of baryonic matter. So would the same be true for DM. I remember a simulation on TV where the moon is depicted as forming from the collision of two planets at just the right angle, at just the right speed. There are two spherically shaped distributions. So in galactic terms, it should be possible to form a DM galactic "moon" by the same process, right?

In any case, it should be possible to study wild galactic collision distributions to see if DM are particles or if it is not, right? If DM does not have wild distributions due to the same gravitational effects on permanant particles, then perhaps it is a second order gravitational effect like the Unruh effect applied to the acceleration due to gravity.

 

[Chronos]

Dark matter is thought to be mostly collisionless, even with itself. Gravitational collapse by products, like stars, do not result because particle interactions are too weak to form dense clumps like ordinary matter. They also do not emit photons, as El noted, hence the name 'dark' matter.

 

[Garth]

But according to most models we should not have seen it yet.

Yes and I have some very shy pixies in my house. I have looked for them but cannot find them, I know they are there because they keep hiding my odd socks. People have suggested that if they are really there then I would have found them by now but I answer, "They are so shy that we should not have seen them yet"!

Garth

 

[EL]

OK, so we both understand that losing energy due to photon emission make orbits decay so it more easily clumps in the center. I fail to see why this should help in the process of forming a disk. Perhaps a :zzz: few sentences would clear this up for me, thank you.

Well I would say the most intuitive scenario would be the forming of a disk, due to that the pregalactic clump of matter always has some angular momentum. However I can not give a detailed explanation for why the dark matter doesn't distribute itself as a disk too. Probably it would if we just waited for a very long time. I guess the radiation losses helps the ordinary matter to form disks much faster.
However there's a lot of people who have studied this in detail, and all simulations show that if DM exists it would distribute itself more as a spherical halo.

But my point is still open, have they specifically, or can they, looked at how DM would distribute itself in the case of galaxy collisions?
...
In any case, it should be possible to study wild galactic collision distributions to see if DM are particles or if it is not, right?

I don't know very much about galaxy collisions, so I'm afraid I can't answer these questions. But of course it would in principle be possible to simulate what DM distributions we should find after collisions, and compare this to data. However I'm not aware of if this has been done.

 

[EL]

Yes and I have some very shy pixies in my house. I have looked for them but cannot find them, I know they are there because they keep hiding my odd socks. People have suggested that if they are really there then I would have found them by now but I answer, "They are so shy that we should not have seen them yet"!
Garth

(What's a "pixie"?)

 

[SpaceTiger]

In any case, it should be possible to study wild galactic collision distributions to see if DM are particles or if it is not, right?

Galaxy collisions and dense clusters are, theoretically, an excellent testing ground for dark matter theories. Since the baryons are coupled to one another by non-gravitational forces, they may become separated from the dark matter, which can only interact gravitationally. If this happens, then we can use gravitational lensing to to compare the mass peaks to the light peaks. This is exactly what was done in Clowe et al. 2003 (linked earlier in the thread).

Unfortunately, there are very few systems in which this kind of analysis can be done, so I wouldn't say that they have yielded definitive proof. However, results are so far consistent with particle dark matter theories.

 

[Garth]

(What's a "pixie"?)

I'll be able to tell you once I've caught one, but what I do know already is that as I have tried to see and photograph them and cannot they must be very dark. Also, because I've set up an infrared night vision camera, which has not caught them, they must be very small, light and non-interacting. So I am just waiting for my infrared night vision microscope camera to arrive and then I will see them.

They also have irksome heavy cousins – the Higgs Fairies - who try to stop things moving around. They rob you of energy in the morning, you know when your 'get-up-and-go' has 'got-up-and-gone'? They make freezer draws stick when the ice-cream is falling on the ground and filing cabinet draws jam when you have to look something up; they make it hard to move the furniture and generally slow you down when you are in a hurry...

Garth

 

[EL]

I'll be able to tell you once I've caught one, but what I do know already is that as I have tried to see and photograph them and cannot they must be very dark. Also, because I've set up an infrared night vision camera, which has not caught them, they must be very small, light and non-interacting. So I am just waiting for my infrared night vision microscope camera to arrive and then I will see them.

What if you find some other reason for your odd socks? Maybe it's just your old washing machine which doesn't work the way you suspect it to do? Have you really watched closely so that it doesn't change the color of one sock during the laundry?
But probably you are right, since if the color changing washing machine was the correct answer, it doesn't solve the problems like why my glasses never are where I left them and why my wallet always gets empty so quickly.

 

[Mike2]

Galaxy collisions and dense clusters are, theoretically, an excellent testing ground for dark matter theories. Since the baryons are coupled to one another by non-gravitational forces, they may become separated from the dark matter, which can only interact gravitationally. If this happens, then we can use gravitational lensing to to compare the mass peaks to the light peaks. This is exactly what was done in Clowe et al. 2003 (linked earlier in the thread).
Unfortunately, there are very few systems in which this kind of analysis can be done, so I wouldn't say that they have yielded definitive proof. However, results are so far consistent with particle dark matter theories.

I think they need to rewrite that paper. It's so filled with qualifying clauses, I can't tell what they are trying to say.

Are they saying that one would expect the mass centroid to be coincident with the light centroid, but they find through lensing effects that the mass centroid in not coincident with the light centroid due to the invisible dark matter contribution? What paragraph did they say that exactly.

 

[SpaceTiger]

What paragraph did they say that exactly.

Several places, but you can check the abstract if you're just looking for a statement like that:

The observed offsets of the lensing mass peaks from the peaks of the dominant visible mass component (the X-ray gas) directly demonstrate the presence, and dominance, of dark matter in this cluster

 

[Mike2]

Several places, but you can check the abstract if you're just looking for a statement like that:

riiiiiiiiight... So does he mean offset in position or amplitude?

So the X-ray sources are assumed to be caused from massive objects like BH's, right? That's why the X-ray portion is considered to contribute more mass than the visible matter, right? Or is there a mechanism for producing these X-rays that does not contribute so much to the mass distribution of the galaxy? Thanks.

 

[matt.o]

the x-ray source here is the intra-cluster medium of the merging group. it is well known that the ICM contributes most to the baryonic mass in a cluster (around 80-90%), it is also known that the galaxies and dark matter are collisionless during a cluster merger (to a good approximation), whilst the ICM is collisional. This collisional nature leads to a process called ram-pressure stripping, where the ICM of the infalling group is stripped away from the galaxies and dark matter due to its interaction with the ICM of the main cluster. Hence the ICM lags behind the galaxies and DM.
now, if there were no dark matter and all of the gravitational potential (causing the weak lensing) were caused by the baryonic matter, you would expect to see the highest mass concentration where the ram-pressure stripped ICM is, since it makes up ~90% of the baryonic mass in a cluster. the fact that you see the mass concentration coincident with the infalling group galaxies and not with the lagging ICM tells us there must be some other kind of matter, ie dark matter.
note that weak lensing analysis is sensitive to all matter concentrations along the line of sight to the cluster.

 

[Garth]

But note that if the DM is in the form of IMBH's it too would be largely collisionless. Such IMBH's might be the remnant of an earlier ubiquitous PopIII population, and therefore originally baryonic. The constraint on this is the BBN baryon density which is model dependent on the cosmic expansion factor during the nucleosynthesis epoch.

Garth

 

[matt.o]

yes, that's what I though you'd say, Garth!

I think IMBH's have been ruled out by lensing surveys. Also remember Helium, lithium and deuterium abundances have observed values very close to those predicted by BBN.

 

[Mike2]

the x-ray source here is the intra-cluster medium of the merging group. it is well known that the ICM contributes most to the baryonic mass in a cluster (around 80-90%), it is also known that the galaxies and dark matter are collisionless during a cluster merger (to a good approximation), whilst the ICM is collisional. This collisional nature leads to a process called ram-pressure stripping, where the ICM of the infalling group is stripped away from the galaxies and dark matter due to its interaction with the ICM of the main cluster. Hence the ICM lags behind the galaxies and DM.
now, if there were no dark matter and all of the gravitational potential (causing the weak lensing) were caused by the baryonic matter, you would expect to see the highest mass concentration where the ram-pressure stripped ICM is, since it makes up ~90% of the baryonic mass in a cluster. the fact that you see the mass concentration coincident with the infalling group galaxies and not with the lagging ICM tells us there must be some other kind of matter, ie dark matter.
note that weak lensing analysis is sensitive to all matter concentrations along the line of sight to the cluster.

Thanks, that helps a lot. What is the source of the X-rays? And what is the ICM made of? Do you have an on-line source for your information? Thanks again.

 

[matt.o]

the source of the x-ray radiation comes from the thermal motions of the electrons and ions in the ICM. When a fast moving electron encounters a slow moving ion, it is accelerated due to the ions electric field. This produces Bremsstrahlung radiation (braking radiation). The temperature of the ICM is around 10 million degrees, hence the Bremsstrahlung radiation is in the x-ray band. there is also some line emission from iron, oxygen etc.
the ICM contains mainly ionised hydrogen and helium and electrons. Although the ICM is enriched with metals to about 1/3 of the solar metal abundance.
here are some links that came from "clusters of galaxies" intra-cluster medium;
http://www.astr.ua.edu/keel/galaxies/icm.html"
http://www-xray.ast.cam.ac.uk/xray_introduction/Clusters_intro.html"
if you need any more go to
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html"
and search for cluster of galaxies, intra-cluster medium, Craig Sarazin, Maxim Markevitch, Alexy Vikhlinin, Christine Jones, Willy Forman, Hans Bohringer Brian McNamara etc.

 

[Mike2]

the source of the x-ray radiation comes from the thermal motions of the electrons and ions in the ICM. When a fast moving electron encounters a slow moving ion, it is accelerated due to the ions electric field. This produces Bremsstrahlung radiation (braking radiation). The temperature of the ICM is around 10 million degrees, hence the Bremsstrahlung radiation is in the x-ray band. there is also some line emission from iron, oxygen etc.
the ICM contains mainly ionised hydrogen and helium and electrons. Although the ICM is enriched with metals to about 1/3 of the solar metal abundance.
here are some links that came from "clusters of galaxies" intra-cluster medium;
http://www.astr.ua.edu/keel/galaxies/icm.html"
http://www-xray.ast.cam.ac.uk/xray_introduction/Clusters_intro.html"
if you need any more go to
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html"
and search for cluster of galaxies, intra-cluster medium, Craig Sarazin, Maxim Markevitch, Alexy Vikhlinin, Christine Jones, Willy Forman, Hans Bohringer Brian McNamara etc.

Thanks again. It is delightful to get this level of help.

One question comes to mind about the X-ray ICM. I've not read your references yet, though I plan to do so. But off hand it would seem that X-ray don't necessarily have anything to do with baryonic mass density, but only to do with the velocity of particles. Perhaps the X-rays are produced at the point of collision between galaxies which may have nothing to do with the baryonic distribution. Ya think?

 

[Garth]

yes, that's what I though you'd say, Garth!

Sorry - I'll shut up and just wait patiently.

I think IMBH's have been ruled out by lensing surveys.

Across what mass ranges?

Also remember Helium, lithium and deuterium abundances have observed values very close to those predicted by BBN.

Indeed , apparently also concordant with the linear freely coasting model, apart from deuterium which then has to be produced by spallation.

Garth