Dark Matter

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This is just some of the stuff that was running through my head, I dont have a degree in any sort of physics or astrophysics, but I would like to hear your feedback and ideas.

So as anyone who is interested in such stuff most likely already knows, only about 3% of the universe is matter as we know it. About 30% in Dark Matter, and about 60% is Dark Energy. (If I remember correctly)

The only way we are able to "observe" Dark Matter, is via the effects that its mass has on space-time. Other than that, we cannot feel, see or interact with it in any way.

The idea I had (which could be totally wrong) is that perhaps, Dark Matter, is matter that has addition demensions. Our known universe only exsists in 3 demensions. But, through mathematics, we can see that it could be possible for an additional demension to exsist. (As we can raise a number X to the 4th power) This idea could be totally wrong, and I cant think of a possible way to test such an idea, but I would like to see what you in the WP community think.

If you know what it is, or have a better explanation, please set me strait!

Yes the universe could have more dimensions as predicted by m-theory. We experience 4 dimensions, the 3 obvious and space/time.

it is difficult for me to believe that the universe contains 83% dark matter.
if that were the case, then there would be many areas that would be occluded to our eyes in the sky.

we can see without obstruction in all directions for many quadrillions of miles, so i guess "dark" energy is more a concept than a reality.

Well as the name suggests, we can't directly see dark matter but well never directly see a quark or even an electron for that matter. That doesn't mean they don't exist. We can measure dark matters effects so it *could* exist.

Just give the LHC a little longer before jumping to conclusions.

there are many different explanations, some involve matter in a praalel universe pulling on our universe thus giving the illusion of extra matter "over here"

it is certainly fascinating to think there might be much more than "this"

There's an interesting possibility, which is as postulated by New Scientist, that there's no such thing as dark matter but that the reason we can't observe it is that essentially what we think of as dark matter is merely a near-infinite number of black holes.

Well it looks as though dark matter, as theorized doesn't exist.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14680570

Exciting times for those interested! I always hated the idea of the higgs.

Wrong. Remember that these are still early results and all they do is put more stringent limits on the energy scales at which supersymmetry as predicted by the MSSM may be discovered. The MSSM will only be ruled out when they have searched the whole of the remaining bit of the parameter space and still not found evidence for supersymmetry. Additionally, the MSSM suffers from an additional kind of hierarchy problem called the mu problem and their are more complex models involving supersymmetry, such as the NMSSM (Next to Minimal Symmetry Standard Model) which try to solve this issue.

Also, do not give up on the Higgs just yet. Signatures for the Higgs boson are slight and it could still take many years of analyzing data from the LHC to confirm its existence.

Look at the following graph of the parameter space. There's still a chance that evidence of SUSY as predicted by the MSSM could still be discovered on that little red sliver still not excluded by the LHC:

[img][800:700]http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kktKoyepHsQ/TVsqPjCIKiI/AAAAAAAAAKY/Wttn2ALJqvA/s1600/strumia_cmssm.png[/img]

P.S. Czech physicist Lubos Motl has criticized that BBC article on his blog, as well as claims that SUSY had been ruled out:

http://motls.blogspot.com/2011/08/supersymmetry-and-irrationality-of-bbc.html#more

I have seen that graph actually

You really would expect the higgs to be detected in the mid range. This is why all efforts have been put into searching there first. Obviously the higgs being such a massive particle, when destroyed should make a hell of a mess thus it should have been detected by now. I suppose it could reside in the last 5% or so of data (of the mid range) but its unlikely.

I really don't believe it exists now but I could be wrong.

In this particular search they were not even searching for the Higgs, they were searching for supersymmetric particles, specifically squarks and gluinos.

Also, with regards to these particles on likely being found in the last 5% of the parameter space, people forget that a number of the free parameters in the standard model were also found right on the edge of the parameter space. That's actually what gave rise the hierarchy problems in the Standard Model. Why should supersymmetry be different? The MSSM cannot does not actually predict these parameters to be in the centre of a graph because, like the Standard Model, it is a renormalizable quantum field theory where there renormization results in free parameters who's values are not actually predicted by the resulting model. Also, like the Standard Model, these parameters have to be determined empirically before it can be used to make precise predictions. While the Standard Model had 20 such parameters, the MSSM has about 60. Moreover, this search only searches the possible ranges of two of those parameters, so it's still possible that other lighter supersymmetric particles can be found in energies lower than the ones searched here.

I also want to point out a few things you're wrong about:

1. The particle considered to be the most likely candidate for dark matter is the neutralino, suggested by the MSSM as the lightest supersymmetric particle. Not the Higgs boson as you seem to think it is. The Higgs boson is not possible as a candidate for dark matter because it decays quickly into lighter particles that are part of "luminous matter". The neutralino however, cannot decay if R-parity (a new conserved quantity related to supersymmetry) was conserved.

2. The initial proposal of both the Higgs boson and supersymmetry had nothing to do with dark matter. They were proposed by theoretical particle physics in order to resolve current problems in particle physics. Obviously, if astronomers see something that they can't explain, then they will look to theories in other areas of physics to try and explain them, not the other way round.

As i understand things, super symmetric theory is needed to give predictions of the actual mass of the higgs so without SS the higgs can't exist. This is fact.

Also the higgs *is* needed to prove the existence of dark matter. Because as things stands nothing has mass without it. Even dark matter.

it is also worth noting that none of these experiments rule out the phenomena of dark matter, only certain ways of explaining it.

i understand. i have not considered the situation in detail, but i see it like this:

dark matter is "matter" that is not directly detectable, and it is only believed to exist because it "explains" the anomalies in gravitational formulae primarily related to the expansion rate of the universe.

i know it is also used to account for other mysterious and unexpected measurements of galactic interaction etc.

i think that dark matter is like a particle soup. like particles that are unbound into atomic structures due to the lack of application of "energy".

particles are comprised of "protoparticles" (not a real word) in my mind. all "protoparticles" are identical. even quarks are not "protoparticles".

"protoparticles" themselves are "points" (LxWxH=0) of infinitely bound energy, but they are static until their entities enter a region of significant gravitational influence that will force them into a compression spiral that eventually reduces their distances from each other until they are within an "atoms" (yeah whatever) distance from each other, which "causes" them to enter each others gravitational fields, which in turn binds them into true particles that themselves recognize each other and "fall" into atomic orbits to produce atomic matter (non dark matter).

the problem i have with that idea is that i believe every "entity" in the universe also has some measure of gravity. things are destined to come together at an ever increasing velocity as the mass at the center of the universe increases during the "big crunch" process.

(just an unrelated thought "2 pin heads separated by a hundred quadrillion light years of distance in an otherwise empty universe will eventually collide").

but all evidence suggests that the "universe" is expanding at an accelerating rate which defies expectation. the idea of "dark energy" or in other words "unaccounted for mass" is currently being used to explain the anomalies, but "dark matter" itself is simply a theory.

i can suggest another theory.

the "big bang" was an explosion.
the pressure wave (energy expulsion density) was a universal amount of energy in almost no time at all.

in all explosions, the bulk of the pressure is released at the beginning of the event, and the pressure trails off after a very short amount of time.

if one could see the big bang happening from a distance in very slow motion, one would (probably) see an intense spherical field of light that radiates from a location. it is brightest at the very beginning, and dimmest after a few microseconds.

there would be an expanding "bubble" of dense energy (eventually coalescing into matter) followed by an ever decreasing intensity of energy that results in fewer physical manifestations.

the central portion of the universe that i believe we are in, has much less mass than the earlier departing zones from the big bang, and since there is no mass where the big bang happened any more (obviously that would be the case), we are attracted toward the outer perimeter where most of the mass is. that is like the surface of a bubble, and things on the same "y plane" (the surface of the bubble) exert lateral gravitational influences on each other like "sphincters", and they contract the surface of the sphere, and that then becomes a perpetual spiral back into another eventual big bang.


i do not know. i have not thought about it much.
even though i am probably wrong, i still will post my wild and wooly speculation.

True, dark matter may not be matter at all. Newtonian physics could even be borked but I doubt it.

An interesting (and very human) theory but using the current model there is just too much mass/energy missing for that to be true. If you are interested I would definitely recommend reading "the grand design" by S Hawking, its a great book.