Dark matter

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Not to be confused with antimatter, dark energy, dark fluid, or dark flow. For other uses, see Dark Matter (disambiguation) Beyond the Standard Model

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Category: Physical cosmology

Estimated distribution of matter and energy in the universe, today (top) and when the CMB was released (bottom)

In astronomy and cosmology, dark matter is a type of matter hypothesized to account for a large part of the total mass in theuniverse. Dark matter cannot be seen directly with telescopes; evidently it neither emits nor absorbs light or other electromagnetic radiation at any significant level.[1] Instead, its existence and properties are inferred from its gravitational effects on visible matter, radiation, and the largescale structure of the universe. According to the Planck mission team, and based on the standard model of cosmology, the total massenergy of the universe contains 4.9% ordinary matter, 26.8% dark matter and 68.3% dark energy.[2][3][4]Thus, dark matter is estimated to constitute 84.5% of the total matter in the universe and 26.8% of the total content of the universe.[5] Astrophysicists hypothesized dark matter due to discrepancies between the mass of large astronomical objects determined from their gravitational effects and the mass calculated from the "luminous matter" they contain: stars, gas, and dust. It was first postulated byJan Oort in 1932 to account for the orbital velocities of stars in the Milky Way and by Fritz Zwicky in 1933 to account for evidence of "missing mass" in the

orbital velocities of galaxies in clusters. Subsequently, many other observations have indicated the presence of dark matter in the universe, including the rotational speeds of galaxies by Vera Rubin,[6] in the 1960s1970s, gravitational lensing of background objects by galaxy clusters such as the Bullet Cluster, the temperature distribution of hot gas in galaxies and clusters of galaxies, and more recently the pattern of anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background. According to consensus among cosmologists, dark matter is composed primarily of a not yet characterized type of subatomic particle.[7][8] The search for this particle, by a variety of means, is one of the major efforts in particle physics today.[9] Although the existence of dark matter is generally accepted by the mainstream scientific community, there is no generally agreed direct detection of it. Other theories, including MOND and TeVeS, are some alternative theories of gravity proposed to try to explain the anomalies for which dark matter is intended to account.
Contents

1 Overview 2 Baryonic and nonbaryonic dark matter 3 Observational evidence

o o o o o o o o

3.1 Galaxy rotation curves 3.2 Velocity dispersions of galaxies 3.3 Galaxy clusters and gravitational lensing 3.4 Cosmic microwave background 3.5 Sky surveys and baryon acoustic oscillations 3.6 Type Ia supernovae distance measurements 3.7 Lyman-alpha forest 3.8 Structure formation

4 History of the search for its composition

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4.1 Cold dark matter 4.2 Warm dark matter 4.3 Hot dark matter 4.4 Mixed dark matter

5 Detection

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5.1 Direct detection experiments 5.2 Indirect detection experiments

6 Alternative theories

6.1 Modified gravity laws

7 Popular culture 8 See also

9 References 10 Further reading 11 External links

Overview[edit]
Dark matter's existence is inferred from gravitational effects on visible matter and gravitational lensing of background radiation, and was originally hypothesized to account for discrepancies between calculations of the mass of galaxies, clusters of galaxies and the entire universe made through dynamical and general relativistic means, and calculations based on the mass of the visible "luminous" matter these objects contain: stars and the gas and dust of the interstellar and intergalactic medium.[1] The most widely accepted explanation for these phenomena is that dark matter exists and that it is most probably[7] composed ofweakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) that interact only through gravity and the weak force. Alternative explanations have been proposed, and there is not yet sufficient experimental evidence to determine which is correct. Many experiments to detect proposed dark matter particles through non-gravitational means are under way.[9] According to observations of structures larger than star systems, as well as Big Bang cosmology interpreted under the Friedmann equations and the FriedmannLematreRobertsonWalker metric, dark matter accounts for 26.8% of the mass-energy content of theobservable universe. In comparison, ordinary (baryonic) matter accounts for only 4.9% of the mass-energy content of the observable universe, with the remainder being attributable to dark energy.[4] From these figures, matter accounts for 31.7% of the massenergy content of the universe, and 84.5% of the matter is dark matter.[5] Dark matter plays a central role in state-of-the-art modeling of cosmic structure formation and Galaxy formation and evolution and has measurable effects on the anisotropies observed in the cosmic microwave background. All these lines of evidence suggest that galaxies, clusters of galaxies, and the universe as a whole contain far more matter than that which interacts with electromagnetic radiation.[10] Important as dark matter is thought to be in the cosmos, direct evidence of its existence and a concrete understanding of its nature have remained elusive. Though the theory of dark matter remains the most widely accepted theory to explain the anomalies in observed galactic rotation, some alternative theoretical approaches have been developed which broadly fall into the categories of modified gravitational laws and quantum gravitational laws.[11]