Without an actual discovery , it can be difficult to win over us laypeople that there ’s really such a thing as “ dour matter . ” It seems to interact with our universe only through gravitation , and no experiment has notice it here on Earth yet . So what if there ’s an explanation to what ’s causing the dark matter ’s effects using physics that already exists , like Higgs bosons and black gob ?
A squad of three European physicists has made what could be attend as a controversial statement : “ The existence of saturnine matter might not require physics beyond the standard fashion model . ” It ’s still just a hypothesis as the hunting for gloomy topic continues , but it ’s an interesting thought process to digest .
First , you might be wondering what I ’m talking about at all . You only experience veritable matter in your daytime - to - day life — it ’s what make up every major planet , star , and galaxy . But astronomical observations imply that there ’s sombreness from six times more affair in the universe , stuff we ca n’t see with our eye or instrument , called glum matter . As of yet , lots of experiment have tried and failed to identify the origin of this somberness .
Then there ’s the Higgs boson , the long - sought particle and associated bailiwick that permeates the world . The Higgs addresses some of the most primal questions in mote physic , like why some particles that should be massless actuallyhave mass .
When scientist at CERN in Switzerland declare their find of the Higgs boson back in 2012 , many theorist were specifically interested in the particles ’ own mass . Their calculations , combine with the mass of another mote call the top quark cheese , implied that the universe of discourse ’s vacancy was n’t its “ ground land , ” and might exist in a sorting - of “ metastable state . ”
essentially , you ’d assume that a emptiness is the minimum possible push a matter can have . But if the universe was in a metastable nation , then perhaps there ’s a lower possible energy state that the vacuity is block from accessing .
But during the former creation , affair were n’t stable . The lead theories paint a picture that in the split second after the Big Bang , the cosmos inflated at brain - meltingly fast focal ratio . All this time , the weird behavior occurring on the quantum mechanically skillful region of physics , where particles randomly pop into and out of existence , could have been magnified and sealed into the larger - scale complex body part of the creation .
The physicist behind this new theory perform some numerical figuring based on how the bantam fluctuations of quantum mechanics would mess with the Higgs boson and its associated field during this inflationary period . Their result was that , eventually , there would be some leftover black holes in position where molecule ’ physical property were capable to especially great change . These primeval dark cakehole would offer the supererogatory good deal necessary to excuse where the drear matter is — it ’s in these black holes . They might even offer an evident theme song on the sky , and show whether the Higgs theater of operations is stable or unstable .
Some physics theorists talk over another potential event of this so - called Higgs vacuum instability — perhaps , one day , the universe could bend into that more - stable state , shift all of the Pentateuch of physics and potentially dismantling everything . That will not materialise , despite fear - mongering headlines , as even the metastable state would remain static for far longer than the current universe of discourse ’s age . But perhaps the instability is important .
“ If it move around out to be true that the Higgs vacuity unstableness is the production method for disconsolate matter , then this means this instability would have been a critical part of what was take for us to exist in the first place , ” Clara Nellist , particle physicist and skill communicator on the ATLAS experiment at CERN , distinguish Gizmodo .
There ’s beenplenty of talkabout invoking primordial dim holes created in the macrocosm ’s first instant to explain the presence of dark matter , even though neither has been observed . But this theory would put up a explanation for dark subject without the penury for describe new corpuscle . Indeed , set of purgative experiments , including the Large Hadron Collider , have been hunting for dark matter particles beyond the Standard Model , but have n’t found anything yet .
Sabine Hossenfelder , inquiry comrade at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies , was coarse on the new paper . She saidin a tweetthat lumping speculations on top of one another decreases , rather than step-up , the theory ’s chance of being correct .
And there ’s a caboodle of place this possibility could precipitate apart . It ’s truthful that the Standard Model keep on tohold up to tests , but it ’d beincredibly hardto evidence that there is no novel natural philosophy . Additionally , grim jam have widely been ruled out as a potential source of sorry issue , order Nellist ; rise this theory would require finding the correct kind of black holes in the same places where dark thing is expected to be . And further purification measure of the top quark and Higgs boson Mass might prove we actually live in a stable universe . break any of these criterion could transport the possibility out the window .
But our universe is weird , and there are many questions that want answering . Of course it would be nice if those answers did n’t call for never - before - espy physical science to explain dark-skinned matter .
Big BangBlack holesHiggs bosonPhysicsScience
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