A recent study by researchers from National Taiwan University and the University of the Basque Country in Spain could offer a fresh take on what is known about dark matter, according to the Taipei City-based academic institution.
Conducted by Chiueh Tzi-hong and Schive Hsi-yu, both from NTU’s Department of Physics, and Tom Broadhurst from the Spanish university, the study is featured on the cover of the July issue of Nature Physics.
According to Chiueh, conventional cold-particle interpretation of dark matter still lacks laboratory support and struggles with the basic properties of common dwarf galaxies, which have uniform central masses and shallow density profiles.
“Our study differs from previous notions of massive dark matter in arguing that extremely light dark matter, whose particle is 10-28 times lighter than the electron, makes up the majority of matter in the universe as it is incredibly dense and copious,” he said.
Chiueh said the team also found evidence of the intriguing connection between the cosmic dark matter and the super massive black holes found at every galaxy nucleus.
“This presents a potential path to solving previously unanswered questions pertaining to the relation and influences between solitons, the medium suggested by our dark wave model that exists in each galaxy, and the [super massive black holes].”
It can also solve the inconsistency problems pertaining to dwarf galaxy observations encountered by traditional studies based on massive dark matter, he added. (SFC-JSM)
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