Scientists one step closer to understanding Dark Matter
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"Findings suggest GLAST mission could detect evidence of dark matter particles.
Using one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world to simulate the halo of dark matter that envelopes our galaxy, researchers found dense clumps and streams of the mysterious stuff lurking in the inner regions of the halo, in the same neighborhood as our solar system.
"In previous simulations, this region came out smooth, but now we have enough detail to see clumps of dark matter," said Piero Madau, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
The results, reported in the August 7 issue of the journal Nature, may help scientists figure out what the dark matter is. So far, it has been detected only through its gravitational effects on stars and galaxies. According to one theory, however, dark matter consists of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), which can annihilate each other and emit gamma rays when they collide. Gamma rays from dark matter annihilation could be detected by the recently launched Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST), which UCSC physicists helped build.
"That's what makes this exciting," Madau said. "Some of those clumps are so dense they will emit a lot of gamma rays if there is dark matter annihilation, and it might easily be detected by GLAST."
Juerg Diemand, a postdoctoral fellow at UCSC and first author of the Nature paper, said the simulation is based on the assumptions of "cold dark matter" theory, the leading explanation for how the universe evolved after the Big Bang. In a separate paper that has been accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal,, the researchers used their findings to make specific predictions about the gamma-ray signals that would be detectable by GLAST. The lead author of this paper is Michael Kuhlen, a former UCSC graduate student now at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J."
This could be an exciting new revelation into one of the more mysterious aspects of our universe. What do you think? Do you think scientists will confirm this theory or be stumped again by this puzzling phenomena?
Using one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world to simulate the halo of dark matter that envelopes our galaxy, researchers found dense clumps and streams of the mysterious stuff lurking in the inner regions of the halo, in the same neighborhood as our solar system.
"In previous simulations, this region came out smooth, but now we have enough detail to see clumps of dark matter," said Piero Madau, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
The results, reported in the August 7 issue of the journal Nature, may help scientists figure out what the dark matter is. So far, it has been detected only through its gravitational effects on stars and galaxies. According to one theory, however, dark matter consists of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), which can annihilate each other and emit gamma rays when they collide. Gamma rays from dark matter annihilation could be detected by the recently launched Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST), which UCSC physicists helped build.
"That's what makes this exciting," Madau said. "Some of those clumps are so dense they will emit a lot of gamma rays if there is dark matter annihilation, and it might easily be detected by GLAST."
Juerg Diemand, a postdoctoral fellow at UCSC and first author of the Nature paper, said the simulation is based on the assumptions of "cold dark matter" theory, the leading explanation for how the universe evolved after the Big Bang. In a separate paper that has been accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal,, the researchers used their findings to make specific predictions about the gamma-ray signals that would be detectable by GLAST. The lead author of this paper is Michael Kuhlen, a former UCSC graduate student now at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J."
This could be an exciting new revelation into one of the more mysterious aspects of our universe. What do you think? Do you think scientists will confirm this theory or be stumped again by this puzzling phenomena?
