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Serious problem #1 Predicted galaxy rotation curves have the wrong shape Too much mass in the “bulge” Gas has too little angular momentum Also never form bulgeless galaxies, which are common in nature
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Cosmology and Dark Matter IV: Problems with our current picture
Jerry Sellwood
The story so far• Once the universe becomes neutral, dark
matter halos start to form• Simulations show a clustering hierarchy of
DM halos that resembles the distribution of galaxies
• Galaxies form inside DM halos as gas cools, settles to a disk, and makes stars
• Do the properties of the predicted galaxies match up with observation?
Serious problem #1
• Predicted galaxy rotation curves have the wrong shape
• Too much mass in the “bulge”
• Gas has too little angular momentum
• Also never form bulgeless galaxies, which are common in nature
Serious problem #2• Dark matter halos
have too much substructure
• Why is there not a small galaxy inside every clump?
• May be able to explain them away by re-ionization
Serious problem #3• Dark matter halos are
not as dense as predicted (Alam et al)
v/2 is the mean density inside the radius at which rotn curve reaches vmax/2
• Points are estimates from real galaxies
• Dashed curves are from standard CDM
Serious problem #3 (cont’d)• Better data are in
worse agreement• Weiner’s work
Serious problem #3 (cont’d)• Weiner’s work gets
around uncertainty in M/L
• Better data are in worse agreement
• Halos are under-dense by more than one order of magnitude
• Plenty of work for SALT
Serious problem #4• There is a formula that
predicts rotation curves from the baryons only with no dark matter
Serious problem #4 (cont’d)
• Formula is MOND from Milgrom• Postulates a departure from Newtonian
gravity in very weak fieldsg(|g|/a0) = gn
• Stronger forces when |g| a0 (10-8 cm s-2) – a new constant of nature
• Ad hoc, but not been shot down in >20years!• If DM exists, it is very hard to understand
why the formula works so well
Serious problem #5• Tully-Fisher relation does
not depend on surface brightness
• Data from Zwaan et al• Incredibly severe fine-
tuning problem
Evidence for dark matter
• Could come soon from any one of 3 on-going experiments
• WMAP• Dark matter would be indicated if 3rd peak
in final data is higher than 2nd
Evidence for dark matter
• Could come soon from any one of 3 on-going experiments
• WMAP• Direct detection in laboratory experiments
– CDMS team in underground mine– Only upper limits so far
Evidence for dark matter
• Could come soon from any one of 3 on-going experiments
• WMAP• Direct detection in laboratory experiments-rays form dark matter annihilations
– EGRET data – very weak– GLAST will be better
What is Dark Energy?• The cosmological constant is the energy
density of vacuum
particle + antiparticle ↔ radiation• Heisenberg uncertainty principle
energy uncertainty × duration > h (Planck’s const)
What is Dark Energy?• The cosmological constant is an energy
density of vacuumparticle + antiparticle ↔ radiation
• Heisenberg uncertainty principleenergy uncertainty × duration > h (Planck’s const)
• Quantum fluctuations in vacuum• Energy of them detected experimentally
– Casimir effect
Expected energy of vacuum
• Know protons, electrons, neutrinos, quarks, gluons, etc. all have anti-particles
• Count up all contributions to vacuum energy density
• Result is huge – 120 orders of magnitude larger than observed!
• Physicists have no idea why• First major headache
Second headache• Why is dark energy
about 70% of the critical density?
• Almost 0% or almost 100% expected at most times
• We live at a special time in the history of the universe– anti-Copernican
Our Preposterous Universe• Our model for the universe is now very ugly
• 70% dark energy• 25% dark matter• 4% normal atoms• < 2% neutrinos (may be much less)
• No natural explanation why they should all contribute so significantly
• Our only evidence so far for the two dark components is gravitational– could another modification to gravity, for ultra-
weak fields, make them both go away?
Conclusions
• Cosmology has come a long way in the past 30 years
• But we still have plenty of unsolved problems!
Generalized Dark Energy• Einstein’s cosmological constant has a
single, fixed value• Can consider dark energy that varies in time
and space – coined Quintessence• Still an energy density that has repulsive
gravity and negative pressure• Equation of state:
pressure = w × energy density• w = 0 for cold matter• w = +⅓ for radiation• w = –1 for cosmological constant• –1 < w < 0 for quintessence