Dark matter—which makes up roughly 83% of the matter in the
universe—is an important player in cosmic evolution, including in the
formation of galaxies, which grew as gas cooled and condensed at the
center of enormous clumps of dark matter. Over time, haloes formed as
some dark matter clumps pulled away from the expansion of the universe
due to their own enormous gravity. The largest dark matter haloes
contain huge galaxy clusters—collections of hundreds of galaxies—and
while their properties can be inferred by studying those galaxies within
them, the smallest dark matter haloes, which typically lack even a
single star, have remained a mystery until now.
“Amongst the things we’ve learned from our simulations is that
gravity leads to dark matter particles ‘clumping’ in overly dense
regions of the universe, settling into what’s known as dark matter
haloes. These can essentially be thought of as big wells of gravity
filled with dark matter particles,” said Sownak Bose, a postdoc at the
Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, and one of the lead
authors on the research. “We think that every galaxy in the cosmos is
surrounded by an extended distribution of dark matter, which outweighs
the luminous material of the galaxy by between a factor of 10-100,
depending on the type of galaxy. Because this dark matter surrounds
every galaxy in all directions, we refer to it as a ‘halo.’”
Using a simulated universe, researchers were able to zoom in with the
precision required to recognize a flea on the surface of the full
Moon—with magnification up to 10 to the power of seven, or 10 followed
by seven zeroes—and create highly detailed images of hundreds of virtual
dark matter haloes, from the largest known to the smallest expected.
“Simulations are helpful because they help us quantify not just the
overall distribution of dark matter in the universe, but also the
detailed internal structure of these dark matter haloes,” said Bose.
“Establishing the abundance and the internal structure of the entire
range of dark matter haloes that can be formed in the cold dark matter
model is of interest because this enables us to calculate how easy it
may be to detect dark matter in the real universe.”
While studying the structure of the haloes, researchers were met with
a surprise: all dark matter haloes, whether large or small, have very
similar internal structures which are dense at the center and become
increasingly diffuse moving outward. Without a scale-bar, it is almost
impossible to tell the difference between the dark matter halo of a
massive galaxy—up to 10^15 solar masses—and that of a halo with less
than a solar mass—down to 10^-6 solar masses. “Several previous studies
suggested that the density profiles for super-mini haloes would be quite
different from their massive counterparts,” said Jie Wang, astronomer
at the National Astronomical Observatories (NAOC) in Beijing, and a lead
author on the research. “Our simulations show that they look similar
across a huge mass range of dark haloes and that is really surprising.”
Bose added that even in the smallest haloes which do not surround
galaxies, “Our simulations enabled us to visualize the so-called ‘cosmic
web.’ Where filaments of dark matter intersect, one sees the tiny, near
spherical blobs of dark matter, which are the haloes themselves, and
they are so universal in structure that I could show you a picture of a
galaxy cluster with a million billion times the mass of the Sun, and an
Earth-mass halo at a million times smaller than the Sun, and you would
not be able to tell which is which.”
Although the images of dark matter haloes from this study are the
result of simulations, the simulations themselves are informed by real
observational data. For astronomers, that means the study could be
replicated against the real night sky given the right technology. “The
initial conditions that went into our simulation are based on actual
observational data from the cosmic microwave background radiation
measurements of the Planck satellite, which tells us what the
composition of the Universe is and how much dark matter to put in,” said
Bose.
During the study researchers tested a feature of dark matter haloes
that may make them easier to find in the real night sky: particle
collisions. Current theory suggests that dark matter particles that
collide near the center of haloes may explode in a violent burst of
high-energy gamma radiation, potentially making the dark matter haloes
detectable by gamma-ray and other telescopes.
“Exactly how the radiation would be detected depends on the precise
properties of the dark matter particle. In the case of weakly
interacting massive particles (WIMPs), which are amongst the leading
candidates in the standard cold dark matter picture, gamma radiation is
typically produced in the GeV range. There have been claims of a
galactic center excess of GeV-scale gamma radiation in Fermi data, which
could be due to dark matter or perhaps due to pulsars,” said Bose.
“Ground-based telescopes like the Very Energetic Radiation Imaging
Telescope Array System (VERITAS) can be used for this purpose, too. And,
pointing telescopes at galaxies other than our own could also help, as
this radiation should be produced in all dark matter haloes.” Wang
added, “With the knowledge from our simulation, we can evaluate many
different tools to detect haloes—gamma-ray, gravitational lensing,
dynamics. These methods are all promising in the work to shed light on
the nature of dark matter particles.”
The results of the study provide a pathway both for current and
future researchers to better understand what’s out there, whether we can
see it or not. “Understanding the nature of dark matter is one of the
Holy Grails of cosmology. While we know that it dominates the gravity of
the universe, we know very little about its fundamental properties: how
heavy an individual particle is, what sorts of interactions, if any, it
has with ordinary matter, etcetera,” said Bose. “Through computer
simulations we have come to learn about its fundamental role in the
formation of the structure in our universe. In particular, we have come
to realize that without dark matter, our universe would look nothing
like the way it does now. There would be no galaxies, no stars, no
planets, and therefore, no life. This is because dark matter acts as the
invisible skeletal structure that holds up the visible universe around
us.”
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-2642-9