Murthy's Thought Experiments on Dark Matter and Dark Energy

Murthy's Thought Experiments on Dark Matter and Dark Energy

KRS Murthy

The universe, based on current understanding of scientists, is made up 95% dark matter – dark energy, of which 70% is dark energy and 30% dark matter. The visible matter and energy that we experience through our senses and our various scientific instrumentation do not interact with the remaining 95% of dark matter and dark energy, except for the gravitational influences of the dark part of the universe on the 5%.

The dark energy that dominates the universe, over the rest. The power struggle between the dark energy and dark matter, and especially the overwhelming dominance of dark energy over dark matter is seen in the ever expanding universe. The rate of expansion is continuously increasing, as observed from the redshifts.

While the dark matter exerts with gravity to keep the visible matter attracted to each other, the more dominant dark energy does the opposite by exerting an outward force expanding, and even accelerating the very expansion.

Both the theoretical and experimental researchers in the study of dark matter and dark energy have just begun the study in the recent decades, and especially the dark energy discovered in the late 1990s, just over 17 years ago. Dark matter interacts with visible matter only in exerting its gravitational force. The dark matter does not interact with light or any other part of the electromagnetic spectrum. That is why it is called dark matter.

The dark energy interacts with visible matter in the universe only in exerting an expansionary force, which it does with dark matter also. Researchers do not know much more about the dark energy, as the dark energy is not detectable by our senses and any of the scientific instruments.

I will discuss the dark matter, especially as to its nature in terms of its physical properties, and also similarly about dark energy in the following part of this document / article. The discussions will employ thought experiments to make my point, with Murthy-ism, which is deep and directed creative thing using my brainstorming technique called Kaleidoscope brainstorming.

Thought Experiments on Dark Matter

1. For simplicity, I will use light as a surrogate word for the full electromagnetic spectrum, sometimes only to mean only visible light.
2. Dark matter is understood by the scientists today as a “matter”, that it is dark as it does not radiate electromagnetic waves. In other words dark matter is not luminous.
3. Dark matter does not scatter light and other electromagnetic waves.
4. Dark matter does not absorb the light and other electromagnetic waves.
5. Strangely, light or any electromagnetic wave do not pass through partly, or fully and especially does not pass through the dark matter to exit on the other side, as otherwise the observer on the other side would be able to see the dark matter fully or partly. In other words, the dark matter is not transparent and not translucent.
6. Visible matter is made up of Baryonic matter. Based on current understanding dark matter is not made up of Baryonic matter. As understood now, light and other electromagnetic radiation do interact only with charged particles in the atoms and molecules in the visible matter. Light and other electromagnetic radiation can't interact with whatever the dark matter is made up of, thus the incident light is impervious to the dark matter.
7. Dark matter is different from black holes. Whereas black holes infact interact with both matter and light or other electromagnetic waves. They force that enables the black holes to interact with matter and energy is also gravity like it is for dark matter to interact through gravitational force with the world outside of the dark matter. In the case of black holes, they are understood to interact with matter and energy.
8. Like black holes are understood to have extreme mass density, though of the baryonic matter with the electrons collapsed into the nucleus. However, the dark matter is understood to have something other than baryonic matter, much denser than the elementary particles and especially different from the mass and mass packing densities in the visible matter.This internal structure of the dark matter is understood to be ot only different from the internal structure of visible matter, except that its effective density is much higher than in the visible matter, bestowing extreme gravity to wield its density prowess on visible matter around its gravitational proximity, and also on light and other electromagnetic radiation.
9. The black holes are understood to hold both matter and energy in its gravitational grip, almost forever, or a very long time, and not let any matter and energy entering its gravitational proximity, called as event horizon, leave thus is black to the outside observer.
10. My conundrum is the following:
    1. What happens to any light or electromagnetic radiation that shines on dark matter, if does not interact in scattering, absorption, transmission as a transparent or translucent matter, or any other type of interaction; as energy conservation laws have to be satisfied?
    2. What happens when visible matter and dark matter collide? If the dark matter is much denser, with much higher gravitational potential, would it suck the visible matter, even though could be different in the process compared the case of a black hole? Would the dark matter forever consume the visible matter? If not, would the visible matter be spit out at any time and under any particular conditions?
    3. What happens when a black hole and dark matter come close the gravitational influence of each other? Does the dark matter be consumed by the black hole? Keep in mind that this might only be an act of the gravitational influence and interaction.
    4. At one time in the universe, the dark matter dominated with its gravitational influence compared to the dark energy which exerts the opposite force of expansion through its radiation pressure. However, now the dark energy has taken over the dominance over the dark matter, spurring a runaway celestial bodies from each other and especially accelerated expansion of the universe. When did the dominance of dark matter over dark energy reverse? What conditions spurred this change? What future conditions in the universe may reverse the mutual dominance of the dark matter and dark energy?