Scientists from Durham University in the UK have developed a theory that the sun’s core could harbor what they have called “asymmetric dark matter” (ADM).
Dark matter is something which has never been observed, but it appears to have a profound effect on the universe and is considered to be the substance which holds together all visible matter.
According to Physics World, the new theory has arisen basically because we still don’t fully understand how the sun works. There are “unexplained discrepancies between mathematical models of the Sun and astronomical observations,” it says.
The results from observations through helioseismology – which is the study of acoustic pressure waves on the sun- and mathematical calculations of the various quantities of chemical elements involved, somehow don’t add up whatever adjustments are made. Therefore, the theory of dark matter interaction within the sun has arisen as an attempt to solve this riddle.
The researchers think that the sun is capturing dark matter as it passes through the Milky Way’s galactic halo. The team have dubbed this type of dark matter “asymmetric,” because it may have its own antimatter counterpart and the interaction of it with other matter inside the sun’s core could be the force driving heat to its surface and powering the pressure waves which sweep across the star.
Space Reporter says,
“Their model relies on the assumption that it is the change in momentum during particle collisions between dark and normal matter that drive the nature of the interactions between particles. The calculations produced by the team suggest that dark matter displaying this property would transfer large amounts of heat from the Sun’s core to its surface.”
Astroparticle physicist, Aaron Vincent of Durham University, told Physicsworld that,
“Such an interaction would probably not involve one of the four known fundamental forces. This would be some new interaction between dark matter and the standard model.”
Phys org. explains how the theory fits.
“To find out if it might be at play in the sun (captured perhaps by its gravity) the team built four models. One of the models was based on standard theory, the other three all took into account the possible impact of dark matter. The dark matter models mathematically described the possibility of interactions between dark matter and regular matter and the momentum that might or might not occur. In studying their models, they found that one, which was based on a momentum-dependent interaction cross-section, fit with observational data, if the mass of the dark matter particle was set at 3 GeV. None of the other models fit in any way. In that model, dark matter carried a significant amount of heat from the sun’s core to the outer solar layers, offering an explanation of prior differences with observational data.”
Vincent said, “There’s probably a zoo of different possible particles that would give this interaction, but it’s not clear yet whether any of those would really work when you work out the details.
“We’re very close to finding out whether this really is an indication of dark matter or whether we have stumbled upon something that mathematically looks like dark matter but is actually something more subtle going on in the Sun,” he added.
Dr Pat Scott from the Astrophysics group at Imperial College London, who was involved in the research, told MailOnline, “To prove that this is really what is going on in the sun, we’d need to find a stable dark matter particle that interacts in this way with normal matter,’
“Either the next run of the Large Hadron Collider, or some of the next generation of direct searches for dark matter, should be able to find such a particle if it exists.”
