We can classify dark matter as the greatest mystery in the universe. We know there is something that makes things move faster than they should, but we do not know exactly what it is, and we are also not sure where it came from.
What if this strange substance arose before the Big Bang?
That moment represents the most popular explanation of how the universe began, in an instantaneous singularity that expanded over billions of years in everything around us. Dark matter, which, according to our calculations, makes up about 80% of the matter in the universe, is sometimes considered a product of the Big Bang.
Now, according to a new study from Johns Hopkins University (USA), dark matter could have formed a set of particles that appeared in a very short period of time, only fractions of fractions of a second, before the Big Bang. Not only does this suggest a new connection between particle physics and astronomy, but if this hypothesis holds, it could indicate a new way to search for something as mysterious as dark matter.
“If dark matter consists of new particles that were born before the Big Bang, they affect the way galaxies are distributed in the sky in a unique way,” said astronomer and physicist Tommi Tenkanen, author of the work that publishes the journal. Physical Review Letters . “This connection can be used to reveal your identity and also to draw conclusions about pre-Big Bang times.”
Tenkanen developed a mathematical model to investigate how dark matter interacts with what physicists call scalar particles. In that category, scientists – so far – have only seen the Higgs boson. And if dark matter is really older than the Big Bang, this substance would definitely have interacted with scalar particles, explains the expert. “If dark matter was really a remnant of the Big Bang, then in many cases, researchers should have already seen a direct dark matter signal in different particle physics experiments, ” Tenkanen clarifies.
The fact that researchers have yet to see such a signal is concerning. The explanation offered by the researcher is that the dark matter could have been the product of cosmic inflation. It’s not the first time this idea has been put forward, but Tenkanen has provided the math to back it up. And, if cosmic inflation happened before the Big Bang, dark matter could have existed before everything else in the primordial soup of the universe.
However, Tenkanen claimed that his mathematical model may point to a different approach to tackling the dark matter question: focusing on astronomical observations.
“While this type of dark matter is too difficult to find in particle experiments, it can reveal its presence in astronomical observations,” said Tenkanen.
In particular, the expert sees potential in the European Space Agency’s Euclid space telescope – named after the father of geometry, Euclid – which will launch in 2022. That spacecraft is designed to map the edges of the universe, allowing scientists look back about 10 billion years.
Will you give us the answer?
Logically, it is a highly theoretical material, but as valid as any other on the mysterious issue that plays a key role in the configuration of our universe. It will be fascinating to see how the search for dark matter unfolds over the next decade.
Referencia: Dark Matter from Scalar Field Fluctuations. Tommi Tenkanen. Physical Review Letters 123, 061302 – Published 7 August 2019 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.123.061302
