- A new type of dark matter has been proposed by researchers, which they claim could be "self-interacting."
- Self-interacting dark matter behaves like a crowd of people who deliberately bump into each other, according to Hai-Bo Yu, a physicist involved in the study.
- Proving the theory of self-interacting dark matter is challenging because the specific particles that make up dark matter are still unknown, explains Yonatan Khan, a physicist.
- If dark matter can interact with itself, collisions between particles could produce immense energy, potentially creating dense, compact cores.
- Yu's team previously suggested that an unknown object must be extremely dense and made of self-interacting dark matter.
- The scar left on the stream of stars is too large to be explained by cold dark matter density, according to the team.
- More observations of different stellar streams are needed to verify the findings, as stated by Yu.
- Studying these bands of stars could become feasible in the next five years with the launch of new wide-field telescopes.
- Yu suggests there is an ultra-dense dark matter object in a gravitational lens system known as JVAS B1938+666.
- Yu refines the discussion by proposing that a clump of dark matter may be trapping stars into the cluster.
- Both Yu and Khan agree that self-interacting dark matter could explain several cosmic mysteries and reveal more about the universe's nature.
For centuries, scientists have been hunting for an invisible glue that many believe holds our cosmos together. Most scientists theorize that dark matter comprises roughly 85% of the matter in the universe, but it remains invisible to our telescopes.
The study authors propose a new type of dark matter that they claim could be "self-interacting." According to Hai-Bo Yu, PhD, a physicist at the University of California, Riverside, self-interacting dark matter behaves like a crowd of people who deliberately bump into each other instead of quietly avoiding others in the group.12
However, one challenge in proving Yu's theory is the fact that we don't know what particles dark matter is made of, explains Yonatan Khan, PhD, a physicist at the University of Toronto, who did not participate in the study.
Yu suggests that if dark matter could interact with itself, when the particles collide, they would produce energy so immense that it could create dense, compact cores. The team stated the scar left on the stream is too big to otherwise explain with the density of cold dark matter.69
Yu adds that more observations of different stellar streams are needed to verify the work, with studies possible in the next five years as more wide-field telescopes come online, such as the forthcoming Vera C. Rubin space telescope in northern Chile.7
Yu suggests there is an ultra-dense dark matter object in one of these gravitational lens systems, known as JVAS B1938+666. Both Yu and Khan agree that with more evidence, self-interacting dark matter could be responsible for cosmic mysteries and might reveal more about the nature of the universe, including particles here on Earth.11
“Researchers propose a new type of self-interacting dark matter that may explain cosmic phenomena. Observations of stellar streams could provide further evidence in the coming years.”
