Scientists have created the most detailed map of the distribution of mysterious dark matter in the universe to date. This was made possible by measurements of background radiation at the Atacama Cosmology Telescope in Chile. The creators of the map will give details at a scientific conference held at Kyoto University.
One of the most important mysteries of modern cosmology remains the nature of so-called dark matter, which accounts for 85% of the mass of the universe. Unlike ordinary baryonic matter, dark matter cannot be detected or its properties described, because it does not absorb, reflect or emit light. The only interaction in which it participates is gravitational. Scientists working in the Atacama Cosmology Telescope collaboration (Chile) have been able to map dark matter distributed in a quarter of the visible Universe using this powerful tool.
This telescope operates in the millimeter wave range and is used to study the cosmic microwave background radiation that uniformly fills the universe. It remains from the era of primary hydrogen recombination after the Big Bang 14 billion years ago, when the age of the Universe was only 380,000 years. “We mapped the sky with invisible dark matter and clearly saw features of this invisible world, spanning hundreds of millions of light-years. It looks like what our theories predicted,” Blake explained. Sherwin, professor of cosmology at the University of Cambridge.
Debra Kelner
The observations traced how massive structures in the Universe, including clots of dark matter, with their gravity introduced inhomogeneities into the cosmic microwave background radiation that had traveled to us for 14 billion years. Their analysis confirmed the accuracy of assumptions based on Einstein’s general theory of relativity about how such structures form inhomogeneities in the CMB and grow over time.
“We have created a massive new map using the slight distortion of the Big Bang. It is amazing that the measurements have shown both the ‘lumpy’ structure of the Universe and the rate at which it is expanding 14 billion years ago. after evolution began – this is what we expected to see in our standard model of cosmology based on Einstein’s theory of gravity,” explained co-author Matthew Madhavacheril of the University of Pennsylvania.
The orange dots on the map correspond to areas with the highest concentration of dark matter, and the purple dots correspond to the lowest. “We see the texture and clumps of dark matter, as if light is streaming through the fabric of a curtain, which has many knots and bulges,” explained Suzanne Staggs, director of the telescope.
The latest findings will add new insights to the debate over what some scientists call a ‘crisis of cosmology’, scientists say. Sherwin believes that this crisis is due to the fact that recent CMB measurements have in fact not recorded this, but the background radiation of stars in galaxies, which has led to erroneous conclusions that dark matter does not have a sufficiently agglomerated structure and existing models may be incorrect. . In fact, a new map based on ACT data has shown that the characteristic dimensions of dark matter inhomogeneities are exactly the size predicted by theory. The ACT telescope, which had been operating for 15 years, was decommissioned in September 2022. However, scientists are still preparing to publish the latest set of observations obtained with this instrument.
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