An international team of physicists has proposed an intriguing new addition to dark matter theory.
The dark matter originated from regular matter and can generate more dark matter by converting regular matter into dark matter particles.
Dark matter has long been hypothesized to explain various cosmic phenomena, such as the bending of light as it travels from distant sources to Earth-based telescopes.
However, there remains a gap in understanding how dark matter came into being in the quantities observed today. The new theory from the physicists seeks to answer this very question.
The researchers draw on earlier studies that posit dark matter was created during the primordial plasma phase, where regular matter particles transformed into dark matter particles.
However, the amount of dark matter created in this manner was insufficient to account for the current observed quantities.
According to the new theory, once dark matter particles began to form, they were capable of converting regular matter into additional dark matter particles, which could then go on to produce even more dark matter.
The rapid expansion of the universe played a critical role in limiting the dark matter conversion.A key aspect of this model is the suggestion that without the universe’s rapid expansion, all matter would eventually have been converted into dark matter.
In the early stages of the universe, regular and dark matter were close enough for interactions to happen frequently, allowing the transformation.
Over time, as the universe expanded, the distance between particles grew, reducing these interactions and slowing the conversion of regular matter to dark matter.
The team’s model effectively explains the current amount of dark matter in the universe, and they claim their theory is testable.
They propose that if their ideas hold, there should be a detectable signature of this process in the cosmic background radiation.
The next step, they suggest, is to search for this signature to confirm their theory.