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A new theory, says physicist Michio Kaku, is that the dark matter of the universe not yet detected could be ordinary matter that makes up stars, planets and galaxies in a parallel universe. “If a galaxy hovers over it in another dimension,” Kaku says, “we wouldn’t be able to see it. It would be invisible, but we would feel its gravity. So, it could explain dark matter.”
Hidden in the Cosmic Web
A new, much less speculative discovery by scientists from the Institut d’Astrophysique Spatiale (CNRS / Université Paris-Saclay) suggests that dark matter remains undetected, hidden in the form of hot gas in the complex cosmic web. For the first time, the possible hidden matter signal was detected in the filaments of the cosmic web buried by 20-year spacecraft data through innovative statistical analysis.
Previously, 2019 research from the RIKEN Cluster for Pioneering Research and the University of Tokyo strongly suggests that gas falling along gigantic filaments under the force of gravity in the early universe triggered the formation of starburst galaxies and supermassive black holes. , giving the universe the structure we see today.
The crazy search for dark matter signals – “Where are they hiding?”
The weak signal
The results of the CNRS observe “that galaxies are distributed throughout the universe in the form of a complex network of nodes connected by filaments, in turn separated by voids. This is known as the cosmic web. The filaments are thought to contain nearly all of the ordinary (so-called baryon) matter in the universe in the form of a diffuse hot gas. However, the signal emitted by this diffuse gas is so weak that in reality 40-50% of the baryons are not detected. “
X-ray emission from hot baryons
These are the missing baryons, reports the Institut d’Astrophysique Spatiale (IAS) hidden in the filamentous structure of the cosmic network, which Nabila Aghanim, Director of Research of the IAS and Hideki Tanimura, postdoctoral researcher, together with their colleagues, are attempting. to detect. In the new study, they present a statistical analysis that reveals, for the first time, X-ray emission from hot baryons in filaments.
“Gargantuan Filaments” – Supermassive black hole incubators in Early Cosmos
This detection is based on the stacked X-ray signal, in the ROSAT2 survey data, from approximately 15,000 large-scale cosmic filaments identified in the SDSS3 galaxy detection. The team used the spatial correlation between the position of the filaments and the associated X-ray emission to provide evidence for the presence of hot gas in the cosmic network and for the first time to measure its temperature.
“Missing”: could dark matter be a light source in the universe?
These results confirm previous analyzes by the same research group, based on the indirect detection of hot gas in the cosmic network through its effect on the cosmic microwave background. This opens the way for more detailed studies, using better quality data, to test the evolution of gas in the filamentous structure of the cosmic network.
Source: H. T Tanimura et al. First detection of X-ray emission stacked by cosmic network filaments, Astronomy & Astrophysics (2020). DOI: 10.1051 / 0004-6361 / 202038521
The Daily Galaxy, Max Goldberg, via CNRS
Image credits: top of page, Shutterstock license; text image of the filaments of the cosmic web,: CERN
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