Dark Matter and Dark Energy Mysteries: Do Neutrons Hold the Key? | S... http://www.space.com/25685-dark-matter-dark-energy-neutron-science.

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Dark Matter and Dark Energy Mysteries: Do Neutrons Hold the Key?
By Charles Q. Choi, Space.com Contributor | April 30, 2014 07:01am ET

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Neutrons bouncing in Earth's gravity are helping to shed light on two of the greatest mysteries in the universe, dark matter and dark energy, researchers say. Dark matter is an invisible substance thought to make up five-sixths of all matter in the universe. The strength of its gravitational pull apparently helps keep galaxies from spinning apart at the speeds at which they whirl. Dark energy, on the other hand, is the mysterious stuff that scientists believe is pushing the universe apart, driving up the rate at which the cosmos expands. Investigators suggest dark energy could make up about 70 percent of the universe. [The Strangest Things in Space]

Neutrons between parallel plates can test hypothetical forces in the universe. Credit: TU Vienna View full size image

Altogether, the particles known to science make up just about 5 percent of the mass

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Astronomers know more about what dark matter is not than what it actually is. See what scientists know about dark matter in this SPACE.com infographic. Credit: Karl Tate, SPACE.com Infographics Artist View full size image

and energy of the universe. What dark matter and dark energy actually are remains a mystery, but physicists have suggested many potential explanations for both.

One candidate for dark matter is a set of particles known as axions. Theoretical physicists originally proposed axions to help solve a puzzle regarding the strong nuclear force, which binds protons and neutrons together into atomic nuclei. A potential explanation for dark energy involves quintessence theories, named after Aristotle's "quintessence," a fifth element in addition to the four classical elements of air, fire, earth and water. These theories suggest that an unknown field that interacts with matter permeates seemingly empty space. Prominent quintessence candidates include "chameleon fields" that grow weaker around relatively dense objects such as planets and stars, potentially explaining why investigators have not detected these fields. If new kinds of particles or additional forces of nature exist, researchers might be able to observe them anywhere, including on Earth. Neutrons are perfect for this kind of research; since they carry no electric charge, they are generally influenced only by gravity, and possibly by additional, currently unknown, particles and forces. Scientists developed an extremely sensitive instrument to monitor the movement of neutrons in Earth's gravitational field. This method relies on neutrons cooled to minus 423 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 253 degrees Celsius), gathered from the strongest continuous source of ultra-cold neutrons in the world at the Institut Laue-Langevin in Grenoble, France. The neutrons move at speeds of less than about 17.9 mph (28.8 km/h) in a vacuum between two horizontal plates made of a well-polished glass that reflects the particles. The researchers make the "mirrors" vibrate 280 times per second, imparting the neutrons with specific amounts of energy.

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Dark Matter and Dark Energy Mysteries: Do Neutrons Hold the Key? | S... http://www.space.com/25685-dark-matter-dark-energy-neutron-science.html

The gravity resonance spectrometer at the Vienna University of Technology used to study neutron behavior to glean insights into dark matter and dark energy. Credit: TU Vienna View full size image

A neutron detector analyzes the energy of the neutrons as they exit from between the mirrors. The scientists know how much energy the neutrons should have while they experience the gravity of the Earth . If the scientists find any discrepancy in the energy of the neutrons, this may come from dark energy or dark matter interacting with those neutrons. "It's like watching a bouncing ball fall and, with a new quantum technique, looking for any effects dark energy or dark matter scenarios could have," said study author Hartmut Abele, an experimental physicist at the Vienna University of Technology. The researchers measured the effects of gravity on neutrons with a sensitivity 100,000 times greater than in previous experiments. They did not detect any deviations from Newton's well-established law of gravity. These findings "cut off about half the parameter space" or potential scenarios that scientists have to examine involving chameleon fields, Abele told Space.com. The results also placed significant limits on how much the axion might interact with matter, Abele said. Improving the sensitivity of these experiments could help confirm whether or not chameleon fields exist. The researchers plan to increase the accuracy of their device by another few orders of magnitude, Abele said. The scientists detailed their findings online April 16 in the journal Physical Review Letters. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.

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Kent Nebergall

Top Commenter Judson University

I love the pure science of this. Neutrons are not impacted by electrical fields. Dark matter is dark (relatively unobservable) because it also lacks such interactions. So flock the birds we understand with the ones we don't understand, and measure them against the "wind" (force) that impacts both (gravity). And they are not looking for anything more profound so far than to expand the observable limits, and do observation within those limits, to see if there is signal in the noise. Note that with various secondary particles from cosmic rays and so on, they will never get a fully, fully pure signal. But they can get as close as the universe allows, and know the difference. So while the experiment still has to deal with the world we have (noisy), the science itself, like pure math, can stay above the fray. Just beautiful. Reply Like 2 11 hours ago Top Commenter Research Assistant at Law Offices

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Jeffrey Patten

I agree. Also, many people have been complaining that most of the articles on Space.com are "dumbed down" for too broad of an audience; Well, this article (and the article on black hole atoms posted at about the same time) are both quite sophisticated. Moreover, the comments posted by many people are way over my head, which I LOVE; it challenges me to read up and learn more. Keep it up, guys. Reply Like 7 hours ago Bryan Swift Top Commenter

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Always push the envelope Jeffrey. Wish many others would do the same. I've been able to teach myself more than anyone has been able to teach me. Sorry all you "teachers" in my past. You did very little for me. Reply Like 4 hours ago David Carlson Solved?! Bok globules as dark-matter reservoirs of luminous matter: Bok Globules = Dark Matter Scientists assume Bok globules are 'proto-protostars' in the process of formation which is hard to support since Bok globules are the coldest objects in the natural Universe, so maybe we're looking at them through the wrong end of the telescope What if Bok globules condensed a majority of the matter in the early Universe following the Dark Ages by phase-change nucleations in galaxy-sized atomic-hydrogen aggregates, endothermically clamping the temperature as atomic hydrogen reverted to plasma, promoting gas densification into globules. As the coldest objects in the sky, Bok globules are invisible and thus dark except when highlighted inside glowing nebulae or when they sprout cometary tails evaporated by nearby OB supergiants. A... See More Reply Like 11 hours ago Stacy Fisher Top Commenter Writer/Proofreader/Photographer at Mountain Valley Living Magazine It has the hallmarks of a viable hypothesis. A theory needs to be based on facts derived from experiment and a confirmation process. Reply Like Jeffrey Patten 2 10 hours ago Top Commenter Research Assistant at Law Offices Top Commenter

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Stacy Fisher - ...so one would have to come up with observations that would confirm or refute the hypothesis. If there are any stars close enough to observed Bok globules to be affected by their gravity, we could measure their movement over time to see if the gravity of the Bok globules is what is predicted by current theories, or if they have greater gravitational attraction consistent with Cartson's hypothesis. Reply Like 9 hours ago David Carlson Top Commenter

Jeffrey Patten We know their individual masses (2-50 stellar masses). What we don't know is their

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