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Ghost Particles Interacting With Dark Matter Could Solve a Huge Cosmic Mystery

A new investigation of the early Universe led by Poland’s National Centre for Nuclear Research has just found that there may be an interaction between two of the most elusive components of the cosmos.

By combining different kinds of observations, cosmologists have shown that what we see is more easily explained if neutrinos, aka ‘ghost particles’, weakly interact with dark matter.

With a vexing certainty of three sigma, the signal isn’t strong enough to be definitive, but is also too strong to be a mere hint or noise in the data.

The Dark Halo That Never Lit Up

Galaxies announce themselves through the light of billions of stars, all embedded in vast clumps, or “halos,” of dark matter. But researchers may have spotted, for the first time, a starless halo of dark matter—containing only a gas cloud. The result was announced by Rachael Beaton of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Maryland at the meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Phoenix, Arizona. Using observations from the Hubble Space Telescope, Beaton and her collaborators showed that the object, known as Cloud-9, contains a negligible amount of stars [1]. “There is nothing like this that we have found so far in the Universe,” Beaton said in a press conference last week.

Cloud-9’s makeup—as inferred from radio and optical observations—would qualify it as the first example of a REionization-Limited H I Cloud (RELHIC), a starless dark matter halo filled with neutral hydrogen gas (H I). RELHICs are thought to be leftovers of dark matter clumps that couldn’t accrue a sufficient amount of gas to form stars, says the project’s principal investigator Alejandro Benítez-Llambay of the University of Milano-Bicocca in Italy. A RELHIC is “a tale of a failed galaxy,” he says.

Starless halos arise naturally within the standard paradigm of cosmology: the lambda cold dark matter (ΛCDM) model, where Λ refers to a “cosmological constant” that describes dark energy. According to ΛCDM, dark matter can cluster into halos that provide the gravitational backbone for galaxy formation. The model also predicts that there is a critical mass below which halos would be too small to ever form stars. Spotting unlit halos might sound hopeless, but simulations by Benítez-Llambay and collaborators in 2017 suggested that halos within a narrow mass range may exist as RELHICs (a term they coined) [2]. According to their calculations, RELHICs would have masses close to the critical value for galaxy formation. Crucially, the compact, hydrogen-filled cores of these objects provide a potential observational window, since hydrogen clouds have a characteristic radio emission.

The Many Worlds of the Quantum Multiverse

Decoherance which is why we are not aware of the universe splitting.

Is our universe a definitive single reality or is it merely one within an infinitely branching multiverse? Be sure to check out Physics Girl’s Dianna Cowern for more awesome science / physicsgirl.

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Help translate our videos! https://www.youtube.com/timedtext_cs_p… Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics tells us that observation collapses a probability wave into a single definitive outcome, but this isn’t the only interpretation of quantum mechanics. The many worlds theory proposes that the wavefunction never actually collapses. The observer simply follows one of those many possible paths into their present reality while all the other paths continue on independent of the observer. Each of these paths branches off into an entirely different reality. In this episode Matt discusses the details of the many worlds theory and why it’s not so far-fetched to think that our reality is simply one of an infinite number of realities existing within space time. Links to sources: The Quantum Experiment that Broke Reality • The Quantum Experiment that Broke Reality… Hugh Everett’s Ph.D. Dissertation http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/manyw… Crazy Pool Vortex • Crazy pool vortex Previous Episode • The First Humans on Mars Written and hosted by Matt O’Dowd Produced by Rusty Ward Made by Kornhaber Brown (www.kornhaberbrown.com)

The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics tells us that observation collapses a probability wave into a single definitive outcome, but this isn’t the only interpretation of quantum mechanics. The many worlds theory proposes that the wavefunction never actually collapses. The observer simply follows one of those many possible paths into their present reality while all the other paths continue on independent of the observer. Each of these paths branches off into an entirely different reality. In this episode Matt discusses the details of the many worlds theory and why it’s not so far-fetched to think that our reality is simply one of an infinite number of realities existing within space time.

Continue reading “The Many Worlds of the Quantum Multiverse” | >

James Webb telescope confirms a supermassive black hole running away from its host galaxy at 2 million mph, researchers say

JWST peered at the glowing trail of stars left behind by a candidate runaway supermassive black hole deep in space, revealing new insights after other telescopes looked at the event.

Dark stars could help solve three pressing puzzles of the high-redshift universe

A recent study provides answers to three seemingly disparate yet pressing cosmic dawn puzzles. Specifically, the authors show how dark stars could help explain the unexpected discovery of “blue monster” galaxies, the numerous early overmassive black hole galaxies, and the “little red dots” in images from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).

The work is published in the journal Universe. It was led by Colgate Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy Cosmin Ilie, in collaboration with Jillian Paulin at the University of Pennsylvania, Andreea Petric of the Space Telescope Science Institute, and Katherine Freese of the University of Texas at Austin.

The first stars in the universe form in dark matter-rich environments, at the centers of dark matter microhalos. Roughly a few hundred million light-years after the Big Bang, molecular clouds of hydrogen and helium cooled sufficiently well to begin a process of gravitational collapse, which eventually led to the formation of the first stars.

Dark matter and neutrinos may interact, challenging standard model of the universe

Scientists are a step closer to solving one of the universe’s biggest mysteries as new research finds evidence that two of its least understood components may be interacting, offering a rare window into the darkest recesses of the cosmos.

The University of Sheffield findings relate to the relationship between dark matter, the mysterious, invisible substance that makes up about 85% of the matter in the universe, and neutrinos, one of the most fundamental and elusive subatomic particles. Scientists have overwhelming indirect evidence for the existence of dark matter, while neutrinos, though invisible and with an extremely small mass, have been observed using huge underground detectors.

The standard model of cosmology (Lambda-CDM), with its origins in Einstein’s general theory of relativity, posits that dark matter and neutrinos exist independently and do not interact with one another.

Hubble’s Newest Discovery Isn’t a Star, It’s a Window Into the Dark Universe

Scientists have identified a strange cosmic relic called Cloud-9 — a starless, gas-filled object dominated by dark matter.

Detected with Hubble, it appears to be a failed galaxy that never formed stars, preserving a snapshot of the early Universe.

A starless relic revealed by hubble.

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