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Cosmology: Dark matter and dark energy

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Vol 458|2 April 2009
COSMOLOGY
Dark matter and dark energy
Robert Caldwell and Marc Kamionkowski
Observations continue to indicate that the Universe is dominated by invisible components — dark matter
and dark energy. Shedding light on this cosmic darkness is a priority for astronomers and physicists.
What is the composition of the
Universe?
In terms of their contribution to the mean
energy density, the contents of the Universe
are approximately 75% dark energy, 20%
dark matter and 5% normal (atomic) matter,
with smaller contributions from photons and
neutrinos. These measurements rely on the
validity of the hot Big Bang model, general
relativity and the cosmological principle (that
the Universe is uniform on the largest scales).
The breadth and depth of experiments and
observations that support these underlying
tenets give us confidence that this model of
the cosmos has a solid foundation.
What is the evidence for dark matter?
We can infer the presence of dark matter
through indirect methods, despite not being
able to see it (Fig. 1, overleaf). Newton’s laws
state that the mass of a body can be determined
by the motion of its satellites. Thus, it has been
calculated that the mass of galaxy clusters is
far larger than that of their constituent galax-
ies, and that the mass of galaxies is far larger
than the combined mass of their constituent
stars and interstellar gas. And there is plenty
more corroborating evidence. Yet there is very
good reason to expect that this extra ‘stuff ’
is not normal matter. Such an abundance of
normal matter would be difficult to conceal
from the prying eyes of astronomers, and
would furthermore leave a distinct signature
in the cosmic microwave background (CMB)
radiation (relic radiation from the Big Bang),
© 2009 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved
and in the properties of galaxies and clusters,
that is simply not seen.
Why can’t we conclude that Newton’s
laws break down at the distance scales
of galaxies or clusters?
This might have been a reasonable hypothesis a
few decades ago. However, any alternative grav-
ity theory that accounts for the observed galaxy
and cluster dynamics must also explain the vast
body of data on gravitational lensing (the deflec-
tion of light from distant sources), the CMB
and large-scale structures. At the same time, it
must also satisfy a suite of precise constraints on
gravity obtained within the Solar System.
How much dark matter is there nearby?
The orbital velocities of stars in the Milky Way
suggest a mean mass density of dark matter in
our neighbourhood of about a third of a proton
mass per cubic centimetre. For perspective, this
is 106 times greater than the mean density of
the cosmos, but 24 orders of magnitude smaller
than the mean density of water. Because what-
ever objects make up dark matter move in the
same Galactic gravitational potential well as
stars, we know that they must be moving with
velocities of about 200 kilometres per second.
Earth’s orbit around the Sun implies that the
amount of dark matter incident on the Earth
varies by about 10% from summer to winter
(Fig. 1). Furthermore, the distribution of galac-
tic dark matter may not be smooth; galaxy
formation is an ongoing process, and com-
putational studies suggest that there may be a
Q&A
nasa & a. Riess (stsCi)
Deep view — a slice
of the Hubble Space
Telescope’s view of
the visible Universe.
significant amount of dark-matter substructure
in the form of clumps and tidal streams.
What is the best bet for the nature of
dark matter?
From the vast array of proposals, the most
promising ideas involve novel elementary par-
ticles. Among the candidates that have with-
stood long-standing theoretical scrutiny are
weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs)
and axions. WIMPs, like neutrinos, interact
only weakly with ordinary matter. They arise
naturally in extensions to the standard model of
particle physics (for example, in supersymme-
try or in models with large extra dimensions).
Detection of WIMPs is one of the primary goals
of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN
near Geneva, Switzerland. The other candidate,
the axion, is an elementary particle hypoth-
esized to explain some of the symmetries of the
strong interactions that bind quarks in protons
and neutrons. There are other possibilities, so
it is necessary to keep an open mind. However,
constraints on the strength of the interaction of
dark-matter particles with ordinary matter, their
stability against decay and their ‘coldness’ —
dark-matter particles today must move slowly
compared with the speed of light — allow the
range of possibilities to be pared down.
What experiments or observations
can help?
Clearly, the most compelling resolution to
the dark-matter problem would be the direct
detection of dark-matter particles. Currently,
587
NEWS & VIEWS Q&a NATURE|Vol 458|2 April 2009

there are some 20 experimental projects
seeking to detect WIMPs by observing the
10–100 kiloelectronvolts of energy that would be
deposited in a detector when a WIMP from the
Galactic halo scatters from an atomic nucleus
in the detector and makes it recoil. The target
nuclei in some of these experiments are located
in metallic crystals; the nuclear recoil is then
detected through the recoiling energy collected
in the detector. The challenge in these and other
dark-matter detection experiments is to distin-
guish the signature of dark matter from the crowd
of terrestrial-radiation backgrounds. But the
current generation of experiments is becoming
sufficiently sensitive that it will soon be possible
to vet some of the leading particle-physics mod-
els for dark matter. The discovery of unknown
particles at the LHC would greatly narrow the
range of dark-matter candidates and boost our
confidence that we are on the right track. But
it would not eliminate the need for an in situ
astrophysical detection.
Haven’t there already been claims of
dark-matter detection?
Yes. The DAMA experiment, operating deep
underground at the Gran Sasso National clue would be monoenergetic γ-rays. There is
Laboratory in Italy, has reported detection of a host of ground-based, balloon- and satellite-
the tell-tale annual modulation in dark-matter borne experiments looking for these clues.
flux consistent with Earth’s orbit through the
Galactic dark-matter halo. This signal has What about the cosmic-ray
not been corroborated by other experiments. experiments …
Because other experiments use different tar- In 2008, PAMELA (Payload for Antimatter
get nuclei, the various results can only be com- Matter Exploration and Light-nuclei Astro-
pared in the context of specific theories of dark physics), a satellite-borne cosmic-ray experi-
matter. The mass of the simplest, ‘supersym- ment, and the balloon-borne ATIC (Advanced
metric’ WIMPs and their couplings to normal Thin Ionization Calorimeter) experiment,
matter, proposed to explain the DAMA result, reported an excess flux of high-energy cosmic-
have been excluded by the other experiments. ray positrons. These observations might be a
consequence of WIMP annihilation, but the
How else can we see dark matter? observed flux is higher, by several orders of
Although individual WIMPs are in theory stable, magnitude, than the simplest WIMP models
pairs of WIMPs can ‘annihilate’, producing high- predict. One interpretation is that WIMP dark
energy photons and cosmic rays in the form of matter is more complicated than previously
positrons (antielectrons), antiprotons and neu- thought. However, more prosaic astrophysi-
trinos. Detection of such particles might pro- cal explanations (such as particle acceleration
vide indirect evidence for dark matter. The most by nearby pulsars) must be excluded before the
likely nearby sources of these annihilation prod- anomaly can be attributed to dark matter.
ucts would be the Galactic Centre, where the
dark-matter density is high, or the cores of some … and future possibilities for studying
of the dark-matter-dominated dwarf galaxies dark matter?
surrounding the Milky Way (Fig. 1). One telling Experiments to detect dark matter directly

a b
Sun
idal stream Observed
st

Velocity of stars
u

If no da
S a g i t t ar i

rk ma
tter
Dwarf spheroidal
galaxies

Distance from
Galactic Centre

30 kpc

Milky Way

γ-ray
Summer
Earth orbit

Sun

Galactic plane Dark-

200 kpc

matter
wind
Summer
Dark-matter flux

Winter

Winter
Time

Figure 1 | Dark matter and how it might be detected. a, b, The rotational matter that trails from the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy and entangles the
velocity of its stars and gas indicates that the Milky Way is embedded in a Milky Way. c, Earth’s orbit through the Galactic dark-matter halo may
dark-matter halo extending out to a radius of about 200 kiloparsecs (kpc). produce a modulation of the dark-matter flux identified in experiments
High-energy γ-rays may be produced by the annihilation of dark-matter that aim to detect dark matter directly: a smaller (by about 10%) flux is
particles in neighbouring dwarf spheroidal galaxies and near the Galactic expected when Earth moves in the same direction as the dark-matter
Centre, where the dark-matter density is expected to be highest. The ‘wind’ from the Galactic halo (in winter) than when it moves against
dark-matter density may also be enhanced in the tidal stream of it (in summer).
588
© 2009 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved
NATURE|Vol 458|2 April 2009
aim to exploit the dark-matter WIMP ‘wind’
(Fig. 1) and isolate the characteristic annual
modulation in the WIMP flux from other
background signals of terrestrial origin. Mean-
while, Gaia, a satellite mission set to launch
in the near future, aims to chart the position
and motion of about 109 nearby stars; this
map will be used to trace out the gravitational
field of the Milky Way, and thereby infer the
dark-matter distribution in its dark-matter
halo. A variety of experiments, including that
using the recently launched Fermi Gamma-
ray Space Telescope, will look for γ-rays from
WIMP annihilation. And high-energy neu-
trino telescopes, such as IceCube at the South
Pole, will look for neutrinos produced by the
annihilation of WIMPs that have accumulated
in the Sun and Earth.
What about dark energy?
The observation that the expansion of the
Universe is speeding up (Fig. 2), instead of
slowing down owing to the mutual gravita-
tional attraction of matter, indicates that there is
much more to the Universe than we understand
at present. The leading interpretation is that
the Universe is filled by something — dubbed
dark energy — that ‘antigravitates’. Whereas
the possibility for gravitational repulsion does
not exist in Newtonian gravity, it does exist in
general relativity. The equivalence between
matter and energy means that gaseous pres-
sures caused by thermal molecular motions
can be a source of gravitational fields. The
gravitational field of a fluid with sufficiently
negative pressure is repulsive. Although it may
be difficult to imagine how molecular motions
can give rise to a negative pressure, it has been
realized that some of the quantum fields that
arise in elementary-particle theory allow for
fluids with negative pressure. Dark energy is
thus simply the negative-pressure fluid that is
postulated to account for cosmic acceleration.
What is the best bet for the nature of
dark energy?
The simplest candidate for dark energy is
Einstein’s cosmological constant, which denotes
a perfectly uniform fluid with negative pres-
sure that is associated with the lowest energy
(vacuum) state of the Universe. However, the
observationally required value of the cosmo-
logical constant is 10120 times smaller than the
theoretical expectation. Alternatively, dark
energy might be due to a fluid of unknown
particles, similar to the axion but much smaller
in mass — quantum theory predicts that such
particles could supply the requisite negative
pressure to accelerate the cosmic expansion.
How reliable are the known laws of
gravitation on cosmological scales?
General relativity works. It has been extremely
well tested in the Solar System, and it is used
to make sense of a vast catalogue of astro-
physical and cosmological observations.
These successes do not preclude the possibility
View publication stats
© 2009 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved
Type Ia
supernovae
erating
Accel
acceler
ating
Magnitude Non-
Recessional velocity
Figure 2 | Cosmic acceleration and dark
energy. Type Ia supernovae, which result from
the explosion of white-dwarf stars, are thought
to be standard candles (objects of known
brightness). This property allows astronomers
to determine how far away such supernovae are,
based on their apparent brightness as observed
on Earth — the dimmer the object seems to be,
the higher the value of its magnitude and the
farther away it is. The observation that these
supernovae are dimmer than expected, at a given
recessional velocity, has led to the conclusion that
the Universe’s expansion has been accelerating
over approximately the past 5 billion years,
before which the expansion was decelerating.
The cause of this cosmic acceleration is widely
attributed to dark energy.
of variations in the laws of gravitation on
cosmological length scales. A Pandora’s box
of gravitational theories has been proposed
to explain the accelerated cosmic expansion.
But it is proving surprisingly difficult to tinker
with gravity without running up against the
precision constraints in the Solar System, and
so far there are no compelling alternatives.
Could dark matter and dark energy be
related?
It seems reasonable to consider the possibility
of a ‘dark sector’, beyond the standard model
of particle physics, containing a dark-matter
particle and a dark-energy field. Both seem
to require unknown sources of gravitational
fields, one attractive and the other repulsive,
but there have been no convincing proposals
that unify the two phenomena.
Could cosmic acceleration be caused by
any other phenomena?
One might consider new forms of gravitation
(whereby normal matter produces the same
antigravitational effect as dark energy), new
NEWS & VIEWS Q&a
electromagnetic effects (whereby distant
supernovae are artificially dimmed; Fig. 2), or
some other flaw in our fundamental assump-
tions (such as the statistical homogeneity and
isotropy of the Universe on the largest length
scales). The current state of observations does
not favour one of these alternatives, but we
must keep an open mind.
What recent observations have helped
to refine the dark-energy problem?
The observations of ‘baryon acoustic oscilla-
tions’ have been used to corroborate and
refine the evidence for cosmic acceleration.
These cosmic ripples made by primordial
sound waves are imprinted on the CMB and
on the distribution of galaxies. By measuring
how the wavelength of the ripples varies with
the distance from Earth, one can chart the
history of the cosmic expansion.
What experiments can help to
determine the nature of dark energy?
There is a decided absence of compelling
theoretical explanations for the physics under-
lying cosmic acceleration, so the approach
to date has been to gather more of the same
type of data in the hope that some clue will
pop out. Apart from using supernovae and
baryon acoustic oscillations, other meth-
ods that measure the rate at which normal
and dark matter cluster under the influence
of gravitation in an accelerating Universe
are also progressing. One promising tech-
nique uses gravitational lensing in the ‘weak’
regime to set constraints on dark energy; in
this regime, instead of the strong bending of
light that results in highly distorted images
in the form of elongated arcs, the images of
distant sources are only weakly stretched and
magnified by foreground matter (the ‘lenses’).
Another technique uses X-ray emissions of hot
gas in galaxy clusters to determine the depth of
their gravitational potential wells. But despite
the promise of these methods, it may be dif-
ficult to determine the underlying physics
of cosmic acceleration. On the other hand,
this seems to be the only way to tackle such a
challenging and fundamental problem. ■
Robert Caldwell is in the Department of Physics
and Astronomy, Dartmouth College, Hanover,
New Hampshire 03755, USA. Marc Kamionkowski
is at the California Institute of Technology,
Pasadena, California 91125, USA.
e-mails: robert.r.caldwell@dartmouth.edu;
kamion@tapir.caltech.edu
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of dark matter. Annu. Rev. Nucl. Part. Sci. 58, 293–314
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