Invisible hand in invisible matter

October 6, 2009
Invisible hand in invisible matter

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Credit: Conejero, Misti & Mazlin

(PhysOrg.com) -- An international team of astronomers have found an unexpected link between mysterious 'dark matter' and the visible stars and gas in galaxies that could revolutionise our current understanding of gravity.

One of the astronomers, Dr Hongsheng Zhao of the SUPA Centre of Gravity, University of St Andrews, suggests that an unknown force is acting on . The findings are published this week in the scientific journal Nature.

Only 4% of the universe is made of known material. Stars and gas in galaxies move so fast that astronomers have speculated that the gravity from a hypothetical invisible halo of dark matter is needed to keep galaxies together. However, a solid understanding of dark matter as well as direct evidence of its existence has remained elusive.

Now the team believes that the interactions between dark and ordinary matter could be more important and more complex than previously thought, and even speculate that dark matter might not exist and that the anomalous motions of stars in galaxies are due to a modification of gravity on extragalactic scales.

Dr. Benoit Famaey (Universities of Bonn and Strasbourg) explains: "The dark matter seems to 'know' how the is distributed. They seem to conspire with each other such that the gravity of the visible matter at the characteristic radius of the dark halo is always the same. This is extremely surprising since one would rather expect the balance between visible and dark matter to strongly depend on the individual history of each galaxy."

Dr. Zhao at the SUPA Centre of Gravity notes, "The pattern that the data reveal is extremely odd. It's like finding a zoo of animals of all ages and sizes miraculously having identical, say, weight in their backbones or something. It is possible that a non-gravitational fifth force is ruling the dark matter with an invisible hand, leaving the same fingerprints on all galaxies, irrespective of their ages, shapes and sizes."

Such a force might solve an even bigger mystery, known as 'dark energy', which is ruling the accelerated expansion of the Universe. A more radical solution is a revision of the laws of gravity first developed by Isaac Newton in 1687 and refined by Albert Einstein's theory of General Relativity in 1916. Einstein never fully decided whether his equation should add an omnipresent constant source, now called dark energy.

Dr Famaey added, "If we account for our observations with a modified law of , it makes perfect sense to replace the effective action of hypothetical dark matter with a force closely related to the distribution of visible matter."

The implications of the new research could change some of the most widely held scientific theories about the history and expansion of the universe.

Lead researcher Dr. Gianfranco Gentile at the University of Ghent concludes, "Understanding this puzzling conspiracy is probably the key to unlock the formation of and their structures."

More information: Universality of galactic surface densities within one dark halo scale-length, Nature 461, 627-628 (1 October 2009), doi:10.1038/nature08437

Provided by University of St Andrews

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omatumr
Oct 06, 2009

Rank: 1.6 / 5 (7)
Congratulations!

I agree that "dark matter might not exist".

The anomalous observations are probably related the short-range repulsive force between neutrons that competes with the long-range force of gravity to maintain our dynamic, visible cosmos.

I urge Dr. Hongsheng Zhao and his associates to study the nuclear rest mass data that revealed repulsive forces between neutrons to five graduate students - Cynthia Bolon, Shelonda Finch, Daniel Ragland, Matthew Seelke and Bing Zhang - and me in the Spring Semester of 2000.

With kind regards,
Oliver K. Manuel
frajo
Oct 06, 2009

Rank: 1 / 5 (2)
such that the gravity of the visible matter at the characteristic radius of the dark halo is always the same.

Doesn't that imply that gravitation begins to act differently from what we have expected at just this "point" - where the gravity of visible matter has a certain value which surprisingly always corresponds to the "characteristic radius" of the inferred dark halo?
ZeroDelta
Oct 06, 2009

Rank: 2.3 / 5 (3)
"...a solid understanding of dark matter as well as direct evidence of its existence has remained elusive"


What, gravitational lensing isn't enough?

Husky
Oct 06, 2009

Rank: 3.7 / 5 (3)
If left alone, nearly every system seeks its lowest energystate,

So it would be safe to assume that something has got to pay for providing darkenergy/expansion,

How about long vibrating superstrings that because of mutual interacting/ frictionforces etc.., lower their energy by oscillating more slowly ,asymptotically approaching a common fequency (sort of heat death mechanism) and in doing so, the strings relax/lengthen and possibly drag space with it, visible matter could be supersets of vibrations riding on the string sand locally very different manifestation of harmonics/tune/physical rules than the "tune" of the guitar playing on cosmic scale, the fact that the amount of darkmatter is too perfectly correlated/topological organised to the presence of visible matter, makes dark matter a somewhat unlikely and artificial candidate, instead a deeper ubiquatous force acting/connecting both the nano and cosmic scale
jsa09
Oct 06, 2009

Rank: 3.6 / 5 (5)
What, gravitational lensing isn't enough?
No it is not enough. Gravitational lensing that has been attributed to Dark Matter is only speculation. Should the formulae of gravity be changed to such a degree that no dark matter is needed to account for observed gravitational lensing then it will be discarded. The observed spin rates of stars in galaxies is a much stronger observable force that is used to provide the existence of dark matter as a possibility. There are very few possible causes of the observed spin rates of galaxies being what they are.

1) difference in gravity
2) difference in mass distribution within and around a galaxy

That is about it so we have two main possibilities, each of those has a number of alternate solutions, of which dark matter is the current popular choice.
jsa09
Oct 06, 2009

Rank: 4 / 5 (8)
It is fairly easy to determine which of the two theories is valid. To my knowledge this has not been done.

Dark matter or modified gravity which is correct and how can we tell?

Simple just observe the rotational velocity of a number of galaxies. If they all appear to have the same effect then we are looking at a modification to gravity. If we have a range of different effects then we are looking at dark matter.

It is inconceivable that all galaxies will have just the right amount of dark matter to affect the velocity of outer disk rotation in just the same way. Whereas with modified gravity that is exactly what would happen.

To my rather limited knowledge, I have not heard of any cases where the outer galaxy rotational speed is not consistent across galaxies, that leads me to the conclusion that most likely we have to modify gravity and not add dark matter.

See, it is easy when you approach the subject using the scientific method.
CyberRat
Oct 06, 2009

Rank: 1 / 5 (6)
They keep adding up madeup stuff, just because they NEED a created univers (Big Bang). If they just accept Red Shift isnt about expanding, it will be much easier and understand red shift indeed says some walls/clusters are up to 100 billion years.
vidar_lund
Oct 06, 2009

Rank: not rated yet
If there are additional factors of such magnitude as to explain the great attraction of 'dark matter' how come they have not been previously observed. Einsteins equations have been tested to great accuracy in various massive systems and to my knowledge the results have been very precise and conclusive.

There was also a recent study that showed that for some galaxy clusters the distribution of dark matter and visible matter isn't uniform, actually the dark matter has the ability to detach from the visible matter. How can this be the case if dark matter is simply a manifestation of additional forces of attraction between visible matter?
WhiteJim
Oct 06, 2009

Rank: not rated yet
Let's try looking at the quantum foam which is the fabric of spacetime. Around objects the quantum foam would be thicker because the spacetime has been compressed (thickened) by gravity. The mass and energy constantly created from nothing at that level may be enough to account for the value of Dark Matter and Dark Energy. It is not measurable directly because it exists mostly in the other dimensions of our universe where the Graviton (that we can only sense its force from our side) and other unknown particles reside. Yet the mass and energy in these other dimensions do affect our dimension at large scales which we coin as dark matter and dark energy.
vidar_lund
Oct 06, 2009

Rank: not rated yet
Congratulations!

I agree that "dark matter might not exist".

The anomalous observations are probably related the short-range repulsive force between neutrons that competes with the long-range force of gravity to maintain our dynamic, visible cosmos.


Yes and those 'repulsive forces' between fermions are acting on a scale of nanometers. Besides wouldn't additional repulsive forces act opposite of what we are looking for?

We need additional attraction to explain the effects observed (hence the need for more mass and dark matter) not additional 'repulsion'.
CyberRat
Oct 06, 2009

Rank: 2 / 5 (4)
If dark matter exists, then is has gravity, so why doesn't it mix with normal matter? Then string theory, just another made up story to explain big bang. BB theory is almost becoming a religion and if some values disprove BB then they just change a few other parameters.
vidar_lund
Oct 07, 2009

Rank: 4 / 5 (3)
If dark matter exists, then is has gravity, so why doesn't it mix with normal matter? Then string theory, just another made up story to explain big bang. BB theory is almost becoming a religion and if some values disprove BB then they just change a few other parameters.

It does mix with normal matter, in most cases visible matter and dark matter occupy the same region of space like in galaxies and galaxy clusters.

The reason BB has become a religion is because it explains many things. String theory wasn't made to explain BB, it's an attempt to explain the nature of the various elementary particles observed and their interactions.

However, String theory hasn't really lived up to the expectations mostly because it has proved very hard to make any firm and quantifiable predictions in 4 dimensions (usually they operate with at least 11 dimensions).
brant
Oct 07, 2009

Rank: not rated yet
"suggests that an unknown force is acting on dark matter."

How come the unkown force does not act on matter directly?

This is getting to be like Ptolemy's spheres.
Ever increasing layers of forces to explain the previous one.
CyberRat
Oct 07, 2009

Rank: 1 / 5 (1)
This is getting to be like Ptolemy's spheres.
Ever increasing layers of forces to explain the previous one.


Thats what i found over the years, they keep adding variables and layers to keep up. If they would use a static (not expanding) universe it becomes much more clear. (only 2 variables)
pbfred
Oct 07, 2009

Rank: 1 / 5 (2)
This is getting to be like Ptolemy's spheres.
Ever increasing layers of forces to explain the previous one.

Copernicus's simple, plausible idea of heliocentric motion eventually put an end to the "ever increasing forces to explain the previous one."

Would there be another simple plausible idea that would put an end to this ever increasing speculation about dark matter and dark energy? There is. All you have to do is think about it.

Why should the mass of the sun attract the planets? It is just as reasonable to guess that it is the sun's radiation that attracts the planets.

I have placed ~1086 gm hollow copper sphere over a 1000 W heat element. Located above the sphere were copper containers filled with ice. When power was applied for 400 s, the gravitational mass of the sphere increased by 1.9% or 20 gm.

You can find four other experiments with similar results and a paper describing how radiation mediates the gravitational force at http://vixra.org/abs/0907.0018
denfire
Oct 07, 2009

Rank: 5 / 5 (2)
if you add enough parameters you can fit an elephant to your data!
Shootist
Oct 07, 2009

Rank: 5 / 5 (2)
Why should the mass of the sun attract the planets?


General Relativity?
iFujita
Oct 07, 2009

Rank: 1 / 5 (2)
Not MOND, now MEFE!
MEFE is the Modified Einstein Field Equation.
"The matter produces the gravity field, and the energy of emission produces the separation field."
http://www.geocit...y01.html

WhiteJim
Oct 07, 2009

Rank: not rated yet
I think that the LHC will confirm the existance of at least one other dimension to our universe. i.e, the one where the graviton resides. This one extra dimension has plenty of room for the mass and energy to account for the forces attributed to Dark Mater and Dark Energy.
vidar_lund
Oct 08, 2009

Rank: 2.3 / 5 (4)
This is getting to be like Ptolemy's spheres.
Ever increasing layers of forces to explain the previous one.


Why should the mass of the sun attract the planets? It is just as reasonable to guess that it is the sun's radiation that attracts the planets.



Yeah, and the earth is flat.
payaam
Oct 08, 2009

Rank: not rated yet
is there any certain effect of dark energy on the earth?
pbfred
Oct 08, 2009

Rank: 3 / 5 (2)
Why should the mass of the sun attract the planets? It is just as reasonable to guess that it is the sun's radiation that attracts the planets.


Yeah, and the earth is flat.


A hypothesis or a guess such as "the sun's radiation is gravitationally attractive" is rendered more valid if it is supported by experiment. This hypothesis or guess that I made above has been substantiated by many experiments that were carried out over a number of years. Five of them are shown here:
http://vixra.org/abs/0907.0018

The radiation pressure studies show that radiation is repulsive. These studies tend to use a collimated beam or a laser. I use spreading infrared radiation (1000 W or more) and I observe that this kind of radiation is gravitationally attractive.
otto1923
Oct 09, 2009

Rank: 2 / 5 (1)
I have to think that another, more responsible and pragmatic species would be committing all of their time and efforts to solving questions such as this before one such mystery devours them. Only one LHC, a dead SSC, no space observatories to speak of, no colonies, no idea what rocks may be zeroing in on us as we speak. No action = suicide. Solve your population problem NOW and get to work. Youre wasting time.
KBK
Oct 10, 2009

Rank: 3 / 5 (3)
Once again, the 'rules' may need modification. The problem is that people are formed, with regard to their ideas in science and physics, under an umbrella that calls things 'laws'. It's difficult for people to accept that the theories of gravitation can and may need modification, change, or outright supplanting--if we allow the theories of physics to be called laws. Most, importantly--it will even work on a subliminal level a prevent them from attempting to look at or reassess the --Theories-. (NOT laws)

Never call a theory a law. They are all theories.

Never call a theory a law. It affects the psychology in people in a fundamental way that interferes with the action and fomenting of new ideas. I keep bringing this us,and I keep getting a bad rating from other members for it. Yet it is one of the most critical things a man can do for his creative flow and capacities..and that is to NEVER call ANY THEORY a LAW.

There are no 'laws of physics', there are -only- -theories of physics'.
KBK
Oct 10, 2009

Rank: 3 / 5 (2)
As well, this is all old hat to the people who follow the original treatise on electromagnetism, as done by James Clerk Maxwell. The original 20 equations in 20 unknowns utilizes small bits that explain all the issues here in this article that seem unexplainable. It is Heaviside and Lorentz that removed the pertinent bits,as I have stated in previous missives. Heaviside stripped away the percentages that would explain it and Lorentz messed up the remaining bits.

All is explained in full detail, ~in all it's glory~ in the interconnected works of:

E.T. Whittaker

James Clerk Maxwell (ORIGINAL works-torsion tensor/vector, not the modern edited versions)

Nikola Tesla

O.C. Hilgenberg

Karl Fredrich Krafft

Gabriel Kron

Walther Gerlach

---And ....Albert Einstein in his 1927-1928 full, working, and ~engineerable~ 'Unified Field Theory' that he had created when he threw general relativity OUT, and worked with Maxwell's full ORIGINAL 20 equations, which added in the 'torsion/ tensors'.
david_42
Oct 10, 2009

Rank: 5 / 5 (2)
"The dark matter seems to 'know' how the visible matter is distributed."

This makes it fairly clear that what is being called dark matter is really something ordinary matter does, eliminating the need for dark matter, and probably dark energy.
nxtr
Oct 10, 2009

Rank: not rated yet
4% accounted for with current gravitational models? The solution is most likely much simpler than dark matter. It just hasn't presented itself in a way the we have been able to observe. Maybe tie up the dark matter theory with strings and toss them into the wormhole.

kasen
Oct 10, 2009

Rank: not rated yet
I wonder if the human race will persist long enough to look back on these times and call them the second Dark Ages.

The dark matter seems to 'know' how the visible matter is distributed.


Well, then, wouldn't that mean that regular matter is the source of dark matter, or otherwise plays a fundamental role in its formation and distribution?

Instead of adding arbitrary dimensions and parameters, why not try the opposite? I'd like to see someone propose a 1D version of the universe, for a change.
LuckyBrandon
Oct 10, 2009

Rank: not rated yet
i go back to my nice simple analogy/example way of thinking about how galaxies stay together...
fill up a sink with water...then pull the drain...no matter how big the body of water you did it too, all that water circles the drain...

supermassive black hole = drain
if they exist in the center of galaxies....and the drain thinking were plausible in most peoples minds...no need for dark matter to hold a galaxy together anymore...

my rant :)
brentrobot
Oct 11, 2009

Rank: 2.3 / 5 (3)
How about parallel universes? Perhaps a tiny bit of gravitational force from each universe has an effect on all the rest. For example the milky way galaxy over the course of say, 12 billion years will be in a quantum superposition the diameter of which is 10 or 20 times the diameter of our galaxy. Perhaps this adds up to the mysterious force of dark matter.

As for dark energy, maybe some of the parallel universes are still inflating and we are getting some bleed through on that as well.
frajo
Oct 11, 2009

Rank: 2.5 / 5 (2)
supermassive black hole = drain

Nice picture. But it implies either
(i) that SMBHs give rise to an unknown long distance attractive force
or
(ii) that the law of gravitation is - at long distance - different from what we know hitherto.
Going
Oct 11, 2009

Rank: 1 / 5 (1)
Wow! This could be Michelson–Morley all over again. Their experiment of 1887 set in motion the line of investigation which led to Relativity and the "Second Scientific Revolution." Who knows where this may take science in the next twenty years.
CyberRat
Oct 12, 2009

Rank: 1 / 5 (3)
My thoughts about a static univers

http://mor.phe.us...Yang.jpg

Yin Yang, one half is dense Matter region with maybe a blackhole in center, or clusters of galaxies (with with black eye) The other half is vacuum with almost no matter.

Now..
They say blackholes eject high energy beams because of particles on the event horizon being pulled in. I say Center of a galaxy or blackhole (if they excist) turn so fast that they have a donut shape. North/South would deformed that it would be close to the center. At the center matter is being compressed to hard it turns in to pure energy and gets ejected (as we can see as gamma rays etc)

Then..
In Super vacuum parts of space, (black with the white eye) vacuum strength is so high it even would cool enery, it then becomes matter again and that matter slowly drifts towards dense matter regions.

And every galaxy is a dense cluster, so your might have lots of super vacuum regions. This all with no beginning, it was always their.
CyberRat
Oct 12, 2009

Rank: 1 / 5 (1)
With above idea/theory it should be possible to have whole regions with galaxy's made from antimatter.
MrGrynch
Oct 12, 2009

Rank: 2 / 5 (2)
Plasma cosmology has been saying for years, "Dark matter" does not exist, and that gravity is not the prime contributor to intergalactic structure, but rather electric forces, carried by birkeland currents. Even a relatively mild current, could overpower gravitational fields billions of times larger. There is no 5th force, but rather a force that has always been there, but ignored.
gwrede
Oct 13, 2009

Rank: not rated yet
Since dark matter is presumed to fill a volume more uniformly than ordinary matter (with stars and vast "voids" between them), one should only have to look at gravitational lensing by two galaxies that have recently had a close encounter.
LuckyBrandon
Oct 13, 2009

Rank: not rated yet
frajo-agreed. just a nice simple way of looking at it. i live in texas (not from here mind you), and people here are NOT that bright...that there is about the only way they could understand... :) lol
no offense to anyone from texas...
Tissa_Perera
Oct 19, 2009

Rank: 1 / 5 (1)
I live in Texas, and I have the answer for the
observations made by Dr. Hongsheng Zhao and his associates. Actually, the link between dark matter and real matter has been suspect for a long time and is now not surprising in light of my theory. Read about it and you will be enlightened at http://cosmicdark...ics.html
Rank 4.6 /5 (50 votes)
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