Designing a test of neutrinos as dark matter candidates
January 11, 2008 By Miranda MarquitOne of the biggest mysteries of the universe deals with questions of dark matter. There are several experiments and models being designed all over the world to try and determine what would make good dark matter candidates. And with the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Switzerland, some of these experiments may be ready for testing.
A model that could see testing at the LHC is one developed by Anupam Mazumdar, a scientist at the Lancaster University in the United Kingdom and his colleagues Rouzbeh Allahverdi, at the University of New Mexico in the United States, and Bhaskar Dutta, at Texas A&M University.
Their model shows how inflation generates the “seed for structure,” and describes how cold dark matter accounts for “missing” matter in the universe. Thirdly, the model’s inflation explains neutrino masses. The results of the paper can be found in “Unifying Inflation and Dark Matter with Neutrino Masses” in Physical Review Letters.
“We know dark matter has to exist,” Mazumdar tells PhysOrg.com. “We see its influences. But it has to interact really weakly with the rest of the universe. This is why the right-handed supersymmetric neutrinos – sneutrinos – are a dark matter candidate. The right handed sneutrinos also give rise to tiny neutrino masses observed in nature.”
Mazumdar also explains that the universe is expanding: “It undergoes inflation.” So Mazumdar and his peers wondered if it was possible to tie inflation to dark matter and neutrino masses. “We wanted to see if we could tie these things together in a model that can be tested in a laboratory.”
Part of the challenge involved in putting together their model included the fact that in most standard models that address this question, the inflaton field values are entered by hand. Inflatons are characterized by integer spin. “We had to figure out how to talk about an inflaton as a scalar particle and try to identify what an inflaton is, exactly,” Mazumdar says.
He goes on to explain that no single particle acts like an inflaton. Instead, a combination of particles is needed. “When we combined an sneutrino, a standard Higgs particle and a supersymmetric lepton, we found they act like an inflaton whose masses and couplings are not ad-hoc but well motivated and constrained by the current experimental limits.”
“The model shows that the inflaton which is responsible for inflating is also responsible for neutrino masses….This component could also act like dark matter,” Mazumdar continues. “Now it is something that can be verified in experiments. Once the properties of the supersymmetric neutrino are found, the testable properties can help us identify dark matter.”
“We are always looking for evidence to back up observation,” Mazumdar points out. “Until now, finding ‘missing’ matter has relied on cosmic microwave background experiments. It was thought that inflation could only be tested by this method. Now we have proposed a simple model that would allow inflation testing on earth.”
Mazumdar hopes that the model he and his peers have developed can be tested at the LHC by the end of this year or the beginning of next year. “This could answer the questions of why neutrinos have such small mass, and whether they would make a good dark matter candidate and the inflaton candidate.”
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Now it's a front page article?!
The fallout to these "dark" theories are going to be exceptionally interesting. I look forward to the future.
Good article.
That's a totally different ballgame than trying to claim that regular neutrinos make up dark matter.
This article is kind of fuzzy on its details though, so it is hard to know exactly what it is talking about.
In a discontinuous universe there is a different way to understand gravity and related effects on a cosmic scale. Gravity is associated with the synchronous primary projection of matter as discrete physical atoms. They are synchronously recalled from an integrated quantum energy field that consists of timeless and formless quantum energy equivalents to particulate matter. Matter is thus both integrated as one, and is distinctly separate atoms at the same time.
The quantum energy field is orthogonal to the integrated fabric of space-time as defined universally by light with respect to each atom. Where there is no light there is a black hole in space. Matter is both a wave and a particle at the same time, oscillating between a timeless and formless quantum mode and a time-like and space-like particulate mode.
The cyclical motions that dominate the heavens must maintain a degree of synchronicity with the universe as a whole. This necessarily introduces a small family of quantum forces due to relative space frame skipping associated with relative angular motions. On a galactic scale this regulates stellar migrations and also results in super massive black holes at the centers of galaxies. There is a lot of direct convincing evidence for analogous effects on different scales and on various fronts.
For instance 99% of the mass of the solar system resides in the sun and yet about 98% of the angular momentum resides in the planets. According to traditional physics this is the opposite of what should have happened as the solar system condensed. Likewise the center of the sun rotates in about 33 days while the periphery rotates in 25.
In a discontinuous universe atomic space frames are very rapidly projected as in a cosmic movie, and the light emitted from static individual atoms defines space within each space frame relative to individual atoms. Each space frame defines a primary interval of linear time that is readily calculated from the quantum requirements of primary hydrogen. Both space and time are thus quantized. All particulate motion is a series of quantum jumps between space frames. Light or EM radiation is the only activity within each space frame and it links up particulate matter to provide us with the integrated fabric of space-time.
Cyclic motions thus introduce synchronous distortions at the center with respect to the periphery in rotating and revolving systems. Space frames tend to be skipped at the center with respect to the periphery yet they accumulate as quantum energy equivalents in the timeless and formless quantum field that integrates discrete space frames. This relative skipping accounts for relativistic effects as well as for the wave character of rapidly moving particles. More on this is outlined in website articles.
In the case of the solar system, if it is to maintain a preponderance of synchronicity with the universe as a whole, and if this accumulation of quantum energy is not to build to infinite extremes, it must become translated as a quantum force of retardation at the centre with respect to the periphery. This is consistent with observation.
Similar explanations emerge in a natural way with other puzzling phenomena of celestial dynamics. Heavenly bodies are not solely at the blind beck and call of gravity and there is no such independent thing as a spacetime continuum, since space and time are themselves quantized by the synchronous projection of atomic matter. This eliminates the need to invent things like dark matter. A new methodology to the physical, biological and social sciences presents itself that complements traditional approaches. There are a number of related articles at www.cosmic-mindreach.com.