Search For Dark Matters Essay, Research Paper

Looking for the Invisible: Search for the Dark Matter

There is perhaps no current problem of greater importance to astrophysics and cosmology than that of dark matter . The search for dark matter has dominated cosmology for half of the century. But one might ask, what is dark matter ? What is it consisting of? And, how do we know that its there?

As much as 90 percent of the matter in the universe is invisible. Detecting this dark matter will help astronomers better comprehend the universe\’s destiny. Eighty-four years after Albert Einstein introduced the world to his theory of general relativity, scientists are seeing that he was right all along about measuring what we now call dark matter. Astronomers supported by the National Science Foundation have found the first evidence of an effect called cosmological shear, a phenomenon predicted by Einstein s theory, in which light from distant cosmic objects bends due to gravitational forces. In Astronomy, as in all sciences, one can detect an object in one of two ways: either by observing it directly, or observing the effect that it has on other. It s always been known that there was matter in the night sky that we couldn t really directly see. So the question we have to ask is, what do we see in the night sky?

Well the answer to that question can be as simple as start and what people might call other stuff or as astronomers calls it stars and dark matters . So the question still stands as to what exactly is dark matter ? And no one exactly know what it is, but we do have few guesses as to what it might be, and certain evidence that it is there.

What could the dark matter be? And what is it consisting of?

The dark matters are thought to be clusters of galaxies without light. Whatever dark matter turns out to be, we know for certain that the universe contains large amounts of it. For every gram of glowing material we can detect, there may be tens of grams of dark matter out there. Currently the astronomical jury is still out as to exactly what constitutes dark matter. In fact, one could say we are still at an early stage of exploration. Many candidates exist to account for the invisible mass, some relatively ordinary, others rather exotic.

Nevertheless, there is a framework in which we must work. Nucleosynthesis, which seeks to explain the origin of elements after the big bang, sets a limit to the number of baryons–particles of ordinary, run-of-the-mill matter–that can exist in the universe. This limit arises out of the Standard Model of the early universe, which has one free parameter–the ratio of the number of baryons to the number of photons.

From the temperature of the cosmic microwave background–which has been measured–the number of photons is now known. Therefore, to determine the number of baryons, we must observe stars and galaxies to learn the cosmic abundance of light nuclei, the only elements formed immediately after the big bang.

Without exceeding the limits of nucleosynthesis, we can construct an acceptable model of a low-density, open universe. In that model, we take approximately equal amounts of baryons and exotic matter (nonbaryonic particles), but in quantities that add up to only 20 percent of the matter needed to close the universe. This model universe matches all our actual observations. On the other hand, a slightly different model of an open universe in which all matter is baryonic would also satisfy observations. Unfortunately, this alternative model contains too many baryons, violating the limits of nucleosynthesis. Thus, any acceptable low-density universe has mysterious properties: most of the universe\’s baryons would remain invisible, their nature unknown, and in most models much of the universe\’s matter is exotic.

Evidences for Dark Matter

The way in which dark matter reveals its presence to us is through the gravitational effect it exerts on luminous matter in the universe. (\”Luminous\” matter is the matter we can see with our telescopes.) The most obvious example of the gravitational effects of dark matter can be observed when looking at the rotation of galaxies.

To study galactic rotation, astronomers look at the emission line spectra of stars in each part of the galaxy. When the light from a star is observed using a diffraction grating or a prism, the starlight is separated into its true colors, in much the same way ordinary sunlight can be separated into the full rainbow of colors known as the visible spectrum.

The true colors constituting starlight separate into a series of light and dark lines in the visible spectrum, with each colored line corresponding to a specific wavelength of light. The specific wavelengths at which these lines occur are characteristic of the elements the stars contain. Thus, they can be used as an elemental \”fingerprint\” to identify a star\’s composition.

When a star emitting these line spectra is moving away from us, all of the wavelengths of the spectral lines are shifted to higher values than they would have been were the star stationary or moving side to side (neither towards nor away from us). All of the spectral lines are thus shifted towards the long wavelength part of the spectrum, or to the red end of the spectrum.

This shifting of the lines, known as a Doppler shift, towards the red end of the visible spectrum is the origin of the term \”redshift.\” When a star has part of its motion towards us, the spectral lines are shifted to shorter wavelengths, or \”blueshifted,\” towards the blue end of the spectrum. By measuring the shift in wavelength, researchers can calculate the precise speed of a star, either towards us or away from us.

When a galaxy is rotating, the starlight from stars on the side of the galaxy that is moving towards are blueshifted, while the starlight from the stars on the other side of the galaxy are redshifted. Thus, we can tell how fast and in what direction each individual star in the galaxy is orbiting about the center of the galaxy. When stars orbit the center of a galaxy, their orbital speed is determined by the distribution of the mass contained within the galaxy. A graph showing the orbital speeds of the stars versus their distances from the center of the galaxy is known as the \”rotation curve\” for the stars in the galaxy. If one takes all the luminous matter that can be seen in the galaxy (stars, gas and dust) and predicts the rotation curve using the well-known laws of gravitational physics discovered by Newton, the speed of stars should decrease in a predictable manner the father away they are from the center of the galaxy.

Looking at the rotation curves of galaxies, however, astronomers have found that rotational speeds do not fall off with distance as expected. Instead, the curves level off, and stars far away from the center of the galaxy move faster than expected. The only way to account for this observation is that a large quantity of matter which cannot be seen–dark matter–exists in the galaxies. To explain the astronomical observations, this dark matter must surround the galaxy in a large, spherical distribution known as a galactic halo.

Theoretical candidates for dark matter have been divided into two groups, dubbed MACHOs and WIMPs. The existence of MACHOs (Massive Astrophysical Compact Halo Objects) has been confirmed experimentally–recently in our own Milky Way galaxy. The nature and origin of MACHOs are currently a matter of great speculation and debate, but their masses and distributions have been measured by their gravitational effects. Proposals for candidate MACHOs include primordial black holes, as well as some types of new, exotic astrophysical objects whose properties have yet to be properly described.

The mass of the average MACHO appears to be around half that of our sun. But the number of MACHOs, although large, still appears to be too small to account for all the dark matter suspected to be present in the galactic halo. This fact has led astrophysicists to speculate on other possible dark matter forms, such as WIMPs.

WIMPs (Weakly Interacting Massive Particles) are exotic, massive elementary particles that do not interact strongly with matter. (Hence they have not been interacting with our detectors so we have not detected them yet). Because WIMPs do have mass, and there would be great numbers of them, their individually weak but collectively strong gravitational effects could account for part of the impact that dark matter has on the rotation curves of galaxies. One possible class of candidates for dark matter are neutrinos. Just announced experiments using a detector in Japan, called the Super-Kamiokande, indicated that neutrinos may indeed have mass. Already, cosmologists are re-examining currently accepted theories.

Regardless of its precise nature, dark matter because its presence plays a ole in the ultimate fate of the universe. Dark matter is known to exist through the gravitational effect it exerts on visible matter in the universe. As our astrophysical experiments become more sophisticated, and our understanding of large gravitational systems (galaxies and clusters of galaxies) grows, we will answer more of the questions that have faced us years. New questions about the nature and origin of dark matter are continually being put forward, ensuring that this field will be exciting, dynamic and at the forefront of astrophysical research for years to come.