12.4 Dark matter and closure  (Page 4/16)

Neutrino oscillations may also explain the low number of observed solar neutrinos. Detectors for observing solar neutrinos are specifically designed to detect electron neutrinos ${\nu }_e$ produced in huge numbers by fusion in the Sun. A large fraction of electron neutrinos ${\nu }_e$ may be changing flavor to muon neutrinos $v_{\mu }$ on their way out of the Sun, possibly enhanced by specific interactions, reducing the flux of electron neutrinos to observed levels. There is also a discrepancy in observations of neutrinos produced in cosmic ray showers. While these showers of radiation produced by extremely energetic cosmic rays should contain twice as many $v_{\mu }$ s as ${\nu }_e$ s, their numbers are nearly equal. This may be explained by neutrino oscillations from muon flavor to electron flavor. Massive neutrinos are a particularly appealing possibility for explaining dark matter, since their existence is consistent with a large body of known information and explains more than dark matter. The question is not settled at this writing.

The most radical proposal to explain dark matter is that it consists of previously unknown leptons (sometimes obtusely referred to as non-baryonic matter). These are called weakly interacting massive particles , or WIMPs    , and would also be chargeless, thus interacting negligibly with normal matter, except through gravitation. One proposed group of WIMPs would have masses several orders of magnitude greater than nucleons and are sometimes called neutralinos    . Others are called axions     and would have masses about ${\text{10}}^{-\text{10}}$ that of an electron mass. Both neutralinos and axions would be gravitationally attached to galaxies, but because they are chargeless and only feel the weak force, they would be in a halo rather than interact and coalesce into spirals, and so on, like normal matter (see [link] ).

Some particle theorists have built WIMPs into their unified force theories and into the inflationary scenario of the evolution of the universe so popular today. These particles would have been produced in just the correct numbers to make the universe flat, shortly after the Big Bang. The proposal is radical in the sense that it invokes entirely new forms of matter, in fact two entirely new forms, in order to explain dark matter and other phenomena. WIMPs have the extra burden of automatically being very difficult to observe directly. This is somewhat analogous to quark confinement, which guarantees that quarks are there, but they can never be seen directly. One of the primary goals of the LHC at CERN, however, is to produce and detect WIMPs. At any rate, before WIMPs are accepted as the best explanation, all other possibilities utilizing known phenomena will have to be shown inferior. Should that occur, we will be in the unanticipated position of admitting that, to date, all we know is only 10% of what exists. A far cry from the days when people firmly believed themselves to be not only the center of the universe, but also the reason for its existence.

Section summary

• Dark matter is non-luminous matter detected in and around galaxies and galactic clusters.
• It may be 10 times the mass of the luminous matter in the universe, and its amount may determine whether the universe is open or closed (expands forever or eventually stops).
• The determining factor is the critical density of the universe and the cosmological constant, a theoretical construct intimately related to the expansion and closure of the universe.
• The critical density ρ _c is the density needed to just halt universal expansion. It is estimated to be approximately 10 ^–26 kg/m ³ .
• An open universe is negatively curved, a closed universe is positively curved, whereas a universe with exactly the critical density is flat.
• Dark matter’s composition is a major mystery, but it may be due to the suspected mass of neutrinos or a completely unknown type of leptonic matter.
• If neutrinos have mass, they will change families, a process known as neutrino oscillations, for which there is growing evidence.

Conceptual questions

Problems exercises