Did German physicists accidentally discover dark matter in 2014?

[admin]

A new theory suggests that dark matter might not be made of undiscovered, never-before-seen particles. Instead, researchers write, it might be made from a type of "hexaquark" detected in 2014.

Did German physicists accidentally discover dark matter in 2014? : Read more

 

[kamikrazee]

A new theory suggests that dark matter might not be made of undiscovered, never-before-seen particles. Instead, researchers write, it might be made from a type of "hexaquark" detected in 2014.

Did German physicists accidentally discover dark matter in 2014? : Read more

I say this respectfully, and without any measure of snark, but I'll believe it when I see it. What would the decay signature look like, and how might we detect it with the instrumentation that we have in place today?

 

[Bradley Busch]

Wouldn't this mean that cosmic inflation would kick in just after this brief epoch (is that a buzz word?) of star formation when these condensates begin to evaporate from photon absorption?

 

[TorbjornLarsson]

A new theory suggests that dark matter might not be made of undiscovered, never-before-seen particles. Instead, researchers write, it might be made from a type of "hexaquark" detected in 2014.

Did German physicists accidentally discover dark matter in 2014? : Read more

Seems to me their toy model BEC condensate is merely targeted to produce primordial gaseous mass. They claim that the condensates would make massive atom analog "nuclei", which would be charge neutral analogous to atoms by forming surrounding electron clouds. "The upper d*(2380)-BEC multiplicity limits (for the assumed attractive d*−d* interaction) correspond to masses at the gram scale. Such d*(2380)-BEC ‘nuclei’ would posses a very large positive charge."

However, if that is the case, it fails the cosmological dark matter characteristics of not interacting with electromagnetism and of not coupling to light so primordial baryonic acoustic oscillations can appear.

They also don't discuss the condensate stability at the temperatures of the cosmic background radiation - which it seems to couple with - or other heating.

This toy model doesn't seem to go very far.

 

[linas]

I say this respectfully, and without any measure of snark, but I'll believe it when I see it. What would the decay signature look like, and how might we detect it with the instrumentation that we have in place today?

It should be "easy" -- accelerator experiments: you should see a resonance, at 2380 MeV, that is 70MeV wide, and has I(J^P) of 3(0^+) which is already seen and measured, here: https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.112.202301 I suppose that confirmation is now sorely needed.

I'm really annoyed that this article is mis-titled: which German lab? What did they see in 2014? Is it this resonance? Something else? Or are they referring to this PRL? Not clear.

 

[linas]

" Such d*(2380)-BEC ‘nuclei’ would posses a very large positive charge."

However, if that is the case, it fails the cosmological dark matter characteristics of not interacting with electromagnetism and of not coupling to light

Completely unclear to me is the electronic structure of the thing. They propose two nuclear shapes: a sphere and a linear chain, suggesting the chain is more likely. What's the binding energy of the most loosely bound electron? If its a few eV, then yes, you've got a serious problem with coupling to light. If its a few keV or MeV, then in practice , it will not be ionized, it's effectively non-interacting with stellar light, cosmic background.

 

[TorbjornLarsson]

Wouldn't this mean that cosmic inflation would kick in just after this brief epoch (is that a buzz word?) of star formation when these condensates begin to evaporate from photon absorption?

I think the term is eon, and the Inflation Eon is the eon that comes before all the others.

Short explanation here:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1Q8tS-9hYo


Physics of inflation here:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJCX2NlhdTc

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chsLw2siRW0

 

[TorbjornLarsson]

Completely unclear to me is the electronic structure of the thing. They propose two nuclear shapes: a sphere and a linear chain, suggesting the chain is more likely. What's the binding energy of the most loosely bound electron? If its a few eV, then yes, you've got a serious problem with coupling to light. If its a few keV or MeV, then in practice , it will not be ionized, it's effectively non-interacting with stellar light, cosmic background.

During the radiation dominated expansion baryons was observably coupled to light at relativistic speeds while dark matter was not. Are you suggesting that somehow a coupling to light would not become relativistic at those pressures and temperatures?

 

[TorbjornLarsson]

I'm really annoyed that this article is mis-titled: which German lab? What did they see in 2014? Is it this resonance? Something else? Or are they referring to this PRL? Not clear.

Maybe they refer to the 2014 experimental reference? https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.112.202301 : "The experiment was carried out with the WASA detector setup at COSY ...".

Thanks for having me dig into this, I studied at the old Ångström locales [not particle physics, but electronics] and the short circuit bangs from the basement tandem accelerator was a weekly shakeup. I did not know that some detectors like WASA ended up at COSY in Germany [ http://collaborations.fz-juelich.de/ikp/wasa/ ]:

"WASA (Wide Angle Shower Apparatus) is a large-acceptance detector for charged and neutral particles. It has been operated at the CELSIUS storage ring at The Svedberg Laboratory in Uppsala (Sweden) until June 2005. After the shutdown of CELSIUS the detector setup was relocated to continue its operation at the Cooler Synchrotron COSY in Jülich. It was installed in summer 2006 and has successfully taken data until middle of 2014. In 2015 the central detector together with the pellet target had been removed and the target area has been refurbished in order to use the forward detector as azimuthally symmetric polarimeter for the EDM at COSY. "

 

[Ptizikil]

I realize that I may be in the minority, but I still have a hard time believing that dark matter even exists. The failure to find any at the center of the Milky Way is one piece of evidence that has not been sufficiently explained away.
Instead, I still think there is a possibility that our calculations about inflation and measurements are being affected by some as yet unknown effect, whether that turns out to be errors in relativity theory, an effect resulting from Dark Flow, or even that Newton's formula varies with distance. There are many other possibilities and it will be interesting to see how this plays out. Loop Quantum Gravity may be closer, in general, to an explanation than M-Theory.

 

[scrushmaster]

Live science discovers dark matter once a week. Yawn...

 

[scrushmaster]

I realize that I may be in the minority, but I still have a hard time believing that dark matter even exists. The failure to find any at the center of the Milky Way is one piece of evidence that has not been sufficiently explained away.
Instead, I still think there is a possibility that our calculations about inflation and measurements are being affected by some as yet unknown effect, whether that turns out to be errors in relativity theory, an effect resulting from Dark Flow, or even that Newton's formula varies with distance. There are many other possibilities and it will be interesting to see how this plays out. Loop Quantum Gravity may be closer, in general, to an explanation than M-Theory.

You are correct current physics is at a crisis point, which is good because many believe underlying mechanics need to be re-examined. Like maybe someone will one day explain gravity...

 

[TorbjornLarsson]

I realize that I may be in the minority, but I still have a hard time believing that dark matter even exists. The failure to find any at the center of the Milky Way ...

You are correct current physics is at a crisis point, which is good because many believe underlying mechanics need to be re-examined.

Instead, I still think there is a possibility that our calculations about inflation and measurements are being affected by some as yet unknown effect, whether that turns out to be errors in relativity theory, an effect resulting from Dark Flow, or even that Newton's formula varies with distance. There are many other possibilities and it will be interesting to see how this plays out. Loop Quantum Gravity may be closer, in general, to an explanation than M-Theory.

In the interest of clarity I'll lump this, and then break it down.

- It is a fringe rather than a minority among cosmologists that do not accept the observational evidence for dark matter. That is because it is observed in so many independent, agreeing ways. I'll put videos with a very illustrative way as well as a related way last - the last one being very explicit and illustrative in the difference between matter that couples with photons (i.e. non-dark matter) and that which do not (i.e dark matter).

- Milky Way, as all galaxies except a very few extreme dwarf galaxies, is filled with dark matter and the center, being a center of gravity, is among the densest parts. You may claim that people originally thought they would see more, since naive models peak in the center (so called "cusp distribution"), but Milky Way join ~50 % of galaxies that have a smooth center distribution (a so called "core distribution"). It turns out that periods of out- and inflow gas recirculation heat dark matter through gravitational coupling, and hot distributions dampens the cold dark matter peak. But I suspect you are confusing this with old hypotheses of so called WIMP dark matter, which would have had a signal of decay from the center - especially if the galaxy had been cusped - and now are no longer much supported. (LHC and ACME - which looks at the electron EDM: http://www.eedm.info/null.html - failed to see natural supersymmetry, which means dark matter WIMPs especially but in general WIMPs and supersymmetry are pretty much rejected.) Such hypotheses are not coupled to the overwhelming evidence that dark matter exist.

- What "crisis point" would that be and what is "many", do you have references? In cosmology the one outstanding observational tension - which sometimes is titled "crisis" by click bait title editors - is in observed expansion rates [ https://cosmosmagazine.com/space/how-quickly-is-the-universe-expanding ]. But sources of systematic errors have not been sufficiently probed as of yet. History of expansion rate measurements with an illustration of historical and current spread (but lack some of the most recent measurements): https://sci.esa.int/web/planck/-/60504-measurements-of-the-hubble-constant . One of several independent ways that results in between as shown in that spread illustration: https://www.quantamagazine.org/new-wrinkle-added-to-cosmologys-hubble-crisis-20200226/ . Note that the last article discuss dust problems with the so called "cosmic distance ladder", for those methods that use it. A new problem has surfaced, namely that what astronomers thought was the most common type of supernova used in the ladder may merely be a small subset [ https://www.universetoday.com/14527...ng-stars-could-help-explain-away-dark-energy/ ].

- Inflation is mostly based in the cosmic background spectra [see Planck 2018 cosmological parameter summary paper in the Planck Legacy Archive]. It will not go away even if expansion rate measurements would usher in other new physics. My earlier comment on inflation eon has videos describing that.

- Alternative gravity theories have mostly been killed by the first neutron binary star merger. "New observations of extreme astrophysical systems have “brutally and pitilessly murdered” attempts to replace Einstein’s general theory of relativity." [ https://www.quantamagazine.org/trou...ives-to-einsteins-theory-of-gravity-20180430/ ]

- Loop Quantum Gravity and M theory are mathematical tools. As regards LQG it was killed off as per above (implied there was no universal speed limit, no single light speed in vacuum). But would never amounted to physics anyway since it has no dynamics. (You can't construct the necessary harmonic oscillators in it, c.f. how they are used in quantum field theory.) M theory is problematic as a high energy physics since supersymmetry mostly died, I think. And really, inflation implies quantum field theory suffice as far as cosmology goes. Seems the universe has a local energy limit - the Planck scale - which is not reached. Maybe it will turn out to be the same problem of exponential difficulty as you get closer as there is in the universal speed limit? We'll see.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4CKtEQJGMY

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPpUxoeooZk

 

[Urquiola]

Besides radiactive elements, or atoms heated to plasma temperatures or a bit less hot, matter is always dark, it only emits reflected light, acting as a 'Black body'. The amount of atoms in the 'absolute empty', and also of photons, can be assessed for a given space volume, let's say a cube of one year-light edge size, and then, the number of times a photon will hit an atom previously in darkness, making it visible.
The whole concept in 'dark matter' is obscure, same as 'dark force', if you put a ball of extreme heat, weight, and density in the middle of nowhere, space and time exist only in the presence of matter, it will only expand, same as bubbles in a soda bottle when open. Or not?

 

[Matt2239]

It should be "easy" -- accelerator experiments: you should see a resonance, at 2380 MeV, that is 70MeV wide, and has I(J^P) of 3(0^+) which is already seen and measured, here: https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.112.202301 I suppose that confirmation is now sorely needed.

I'm really annoyed that this article is mis-titled: which German lab? What did they see in 2014? Is it this resonance? Something else? Or are they referring to this PRL? Not clear.

I feel the same way.

 

[TorbjornLarsson]

Besides radiactive elements, or atoms heated to plasma temperatures or a bit less hot, matter is always dark, it only emits reflected light, acting as a 'Black body'. The amount of atoms in the 'absolute empty', and also of photons, can be assessed for a given space volume, let's say a cube of one year-light edge size, and then, the number of times a photon will hit an atom previously in darkness, making it visible.

The whole concept in 'dark matter' is obscure, same as 'dark force', if you put a ball of extreme heat, weight, and density in the middle of nowhere, space and time exist only in the presence of matter, it will only expand, same as bubbles in a soda bottle when open. Or not?

You are lumping together a lot of disparate topics here. If my response is too long, I wish that you at least consider the first two topics: the universe has never been a "ball" that is put "in the middle of nowhere".

To start with the cosmology then, the video I linked titled "The Big Bang is Probably Not What You Think" explain why the "ball" idea has been known to be wrong for a century now. There are two possible behaviors of the universe scale change, expansion and contraction, and we see only one.

The linked video "The Real Physics of Cosmic Inflation" and "What Happened Before Big´Bang" explains why and how 'inflation put the bang in big bang' - it did not happen spontaneously nor did matter initially exist or is necessary for the existence of spacetime (which accords with general relativity).

Why matter exists in spacetime instead of only radiation and why matter is massive are more complex subjects. They are complex already for non-dark matter and worse for dark matter (actually, a matter of research).

Having set the scene we can ask what is dark matter and how do we observe it? Two of the more illustrative ways of observation (together with gravitational lensing, perhaps) are described in the linked videos "Secrets of the CMB" and "Primordial Sound Waves from the Big Bang".

TL;DW: the cold dark matter of cosmology behaves as a dark gas. Such a gas is dark by not interacting with light. We also know that it is lumpy - think clumps of denser gas - while it is less clear if it has solid or liquid like structures in it. Admittedly we could know more.

Finally, all non-dark matter emits heat, photons that distribute like a black body heat emission does, whether it is plasma or not. Black body radiation is therefore not reflected.

 

[NP2020]

I am not qualified to judge the validity of this "discovery," but let's suppose it is the explanation of dark matter. The idea that the theorized BECs decay over extremely long periods of time might also explain at least part of the acceleration of the expansion of the universe, and thus "dark energy," both because there would be less gravitational pull with less dark matter and because of the energy given off by the decay of vast amounts of matter over vast amounts of time.

 

[Observeration2020]

leaves open a few big questions like:

seems like the captured electron quarks would merge into the d-star quarks if
both are at same temperatures as implied by "capture"...so would d-star remain a d-star hex?

I mean the ghosting through other matter sounds like d-star hexaquarks are either incredibly tightly bound together compared to other matter or only interact with other d-stars where swapping quarks does not change anything.

Would ghosting through other matter filter out captured electrons?

If instead the answer is that captured electrons get transformed into d-star but retain the charge - is it not perhaps shorter to just propose direct formation of neutrally charged d-stars? I assume that if that answer is free electrons transform into d-star material- then there must be something structural similar to molecular isomers where the component quarks are the same or similar but the physical assembly structure is different to cause positive or neutral or possibly even negative charge forms.

Does it matter if the foreign matter that d-star particles ghost through is at significantly higher temperatures? How stable are d-stars versus temperature once formed?

--
Lots of questions about the assumption of singleton elemental d-star hexaquarks nearing earth close and long enough for detection of ?rare? decay.

BECs sound incredible dense compared to anything outside a black hole and perhaps more dense since many smaller black holes are absorbing considerable energy compared to total mass. So would not BECs and d-stars in particular tend to clump gravitationally to form ever growing small scale black holes? Would not even a single average stellar photons absorbed into an elementary d-star singleton raise the particle temperate far above that extreme low temperature necessary for d-star formation and probably make it likely to undergo quantum decay into other particles?

I am guessing the answer is that d-star particles are so small are too small to have significant chance of interacting with normal stellar photons? Doesn't the cross-section for interaction fall rapidly as EM wavelength exceeds particle size? Basically particle size being antenna size matching wavelength. So super high energy photons only emitted by neutron stars and black hole class astronomical events. Also reinforces why d-stars might ghost through other matter. Just too small for force interaction based on normal level of energy exchange. Even isotope transmutation via particle day may not be energetic and short enough wavelength to interact. Maybe proton-anti-proton annihilation? What the ballpark? Or are d-stars the plastics of the big bang and not predictably degradable under any current universe conditions?

Still sounds like d-stars should sink to the center of any mass they approach...though escape velocity for its gravity versus d-star velocity likely matters. So singleton d-stars might pass close to earth but they will likely far exceed velocities of Sol system regular bodies like comets given they are falling in from Oort on top of prior velocity. maybe even at relativistic speeds. Could be very short encounter in which to detect possible decay. So maybe only captured and lost in black holes and neutron stars.

--
Could d-star blob collections from big bang times be better candidates for seeding galactic formation from intergalactic normal matter vapors and dust? Seems like any large accumulation would form black holes and galactic black holes in many case seem far to massive to form jsut from standard matter in stars and dust assumed to originally occupy the center of galaxies. What if normal stars and dust never occupied the center of galaxies? What if d-star blobs swept and collected the normal matter necessary to form larger visible galaxies. Collisions of those galaxies might still acount for most smaller satellite galaxies and exterior clusters. But if so does enough free normal matter still exist for galaxy formation around BEC blobs to be an observable process? Can we see it on old light?

Does quantum decay of dark matter still feed new galaxy formation by transforming Dark BECs and d-star material into normal matter and energy? Or is the process too slow given rates of expanding universe?

 

[Observeration2020]

The following paper describes a reason why some dark matter particles would be made from six parts. "Possible Dark Matter Mass Candidates in Spinning Sphere Theory "Please see link. https://vixra.org/pdf/1904.0194v1.pdf

Would intergalactic black holes still fit dark matter criteria assuming they have NOT begun seeding a new galaxy by collecting stray gases? I mean are we sure some intergalactic space is not lots more vacant than other locations? so no backlights or nearby visible bodies to move and help localize. Perhaps more vacant due to past sweeps of galactic formation exhausting the assumed equal original distribution of big bang remains (from what I remember that is more of a "why not equal distribution" assumption due to lack of contrary info and the ease of modeling).

Just point me in the right direction for the old work on this. I have not been keeping up or remembering. Just want perspective to see how science evolved to where this new explanation is more desirable - or if its just a new alternative more interesting mainly because its new and not exhaustive discussed to where speculation is boring without any more real but rare evidence with which to work.

 

[TorbjornLarsson]

I am not qualified to judge the validity of this "discovery," but let's suppose it is the explanation of dark matter. The idea that the theorized BECs decay over extremely long periods of time might also explain at least part of the acceleration of the expansion of the universe, and thus "dark energy," both because there would be less gravitational pull with less dark matter and because of the energy given off by the decay of vast amounts of matter over vast amounts of time.

That would make dark energy varying over time, which is not seen. Also, already special relativity tells us it doesn't matter which form energy takes - matter included - and in general relativity that is used to give the same curvature - gravity - change. Specifically though the universe is on average flat, so there will be no change at all in regards gravity on cosmological scales-

 

[TorbjornLarsson]

"Possible Dark Matter Mass Candidates in Spinning Sphere Theory "Please see link. https://vixra.org/pdf/1904.0194v1.pdf

That is a pseudoscience archive. And - it is an easy guess - that is self promotional spam?

 

[TorbjornLarsson]

Just point me in the right direction for the old work on this. I have not been keeping up or remembering. Just want perspective to see how science evolved to where this new explanation is more desirable - or if its just a new alternative more interesting mainly because its new and not exhaustive discussed to where speculation is boring without any more real but rare evidence with which to work.

To try to sum up: I'm not sure why you reference a pseudoscience text while asking a lot of exhaustive detail in another comment, and end here by asking for context of the current science and how the discussed research edge paper fits into it.

Making the generic assumption that you want responses, I will pick some of the points - you are asking too much for a thread, you may want to take a Cosmology 101 course instead - and finish with the paper.

- Structure formation starts during the inflation eon. See the linked videos for that.

- Galaxies merge, so the dynamic ripping they see during a collision is temporary. There are many videos on that on the web, try the NASA web site say.

- Observations tell us dark matter is a gas, so the black holes would be small. Primordial black holes were considered a realistic candidate but have been excluded (by gravitational lensing, IIRC).

- The properties of the d-star and the putative BEC is covered in the paper. The BEC came out like something on the scale of 1 pm in scale and 1 g in mass.

 

[linas]

During the radiation dominated expansion baryons was observably coupled to light at relativistic speeds while dark matter was not. Are you suggesting that somehow a coupling to light would not become relativistic at those pressures and temperatures?

OK, so single d*'s have a width of 70 MeV, so they would decay almost instantly, before they can couple to anything. But a BEC of several-thousand or several million of them is hypotheiszed to be stable, via the binding energy. (I think the authors were leaning towards several-million) But ... that means each individual such particle would have a mass between 1TeV and 1000TeV. So now: what's the temperature of a gas of something that heavy? Would it be a relativistic gas, or not? What's the electronic biding energy? Since d* is charged, not neutral, and say you have a nuclear Z of a million ... these BEC's are not likely to be fully ionized, no matter what. So they're partly ionized... So, lets say each of them has a mass of 10^3 TeV, and a charge of 10^3(???) how strongly coupled would that be, and in what sense would it be relativistic?

I'm really totally clueless about this; but I'm just thinking that whatever calculation one might make for pressure/temperature, these BEC particles throw off the scaling factor by 10^3 or 10^6, simply because they are that much heavier than a baryon...

(See also my next post below, wherein I realize that the BEC's have to condense out above the Higgs mass scale, so deep in the inflationary phase. ...)

 

[linas]

> pressures and temperatures

Torbjorn, how well do you understand inflation? (I don't at all.) So here's my question: in the standard model, inflation continues until the temperature drops below Higgs mass (250 Gev). Next comes a QG plasma phase until the temperature drops below baryon mass (1GeV) and one has baryogenisis. OK, so now take that model, and assume that, at some point, the BEC's have to condense out; I can only presume that they have to do so at the BEC mass of 1PeV. So this is many orders of magnitude above the Higgs mass. What happens to inflation, when one has this earlier phase transition, occurring before the Higgs breaking?

Is there some "inflation for grad students/working theorists" set of lectures or review somewhere? Something that assumes you know GR and the standard model, but not inflation itself? Is there some on-line discussion of what this extra early phase transition might look like?