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Views Columnist
Chanda Prescod-Weinstein
is an assistant professor of
physics and astronomy, and
a core faculty member in
women’s studies at the
University of New Hampshire.
Her research in theoretical
physics focuses on cosmology,
neutron stars and particles
beyond the standard model
Chanda’s week
What I’m reading
I’m currently working
my way through
Annette Gordon-Reed’s
The Hemingses of
Monticello.
What I’m watching
I found the film Bait 3D
to be surprisingly
compelling.
What I’m working on
My editor just gave me
feedback on a draft of
my forthcoming book
The Disordered Cosmos,
so I am plugging away
at edits.
This column appears
monthly. Up next week:
Graham Lawton
20 | New Scientist | 4 January 2020
Field notes from space-time
Are dark matter and dark energy related? There is no law of
physics dictating that these phenomena can’t be connected, and it
is natural to wonder about it, writes Chanda Prescod-Weinstein
D
ARK matter and dark
energy are mysterious
phenomena that have
captured the attention of
astronomers, cosmologists
and particle physicists for
decades and they both have
the word “dark” in them, so
they must be related right?
After my last column, a curious
reader wrote to me to ask about
the relationship between the
two phenomena. I have decided
to use this first column of the year
to answer this question, which
goes to the heart of some of our
most fundamental concepts in
physics and some of our biggest
open problems in astrophysics
and cosmology.
Dark matter and dark energy
are related, but perhaps not in the
way you might expect. For the
most part, theoretical physicists
and observational astronomers
expect them to be different
entities, and the majority of our
research is organised around the
idea that they have very little
relationship to one another.
Mostly what connects them is a
tendency of 20th-century
scientists to name things they
can’t see or understand as “dark”.
To understand the difference,
you need a grasp of what matter
and energy are. Most people
probably encounter these physics
concepts through pop culture
representations of Albert
Einstein’s famous equation,
E = mc2. “E” represents energy,
the “m” represents mass, and
“c” represents the constant
speed of light.
Mass is a measure of roughly
how much matter there is. We are
most intuitively familiar with
mass via gravity: here on Earth,
our mass determines the strength
of our gravitational interaction
with the planet, something more
popularly known as our weight.
We understand that our weight
roughly gives a measure of how
much matter there is inside us.
Energy is a more abstract
concept and developing an
intuition for it generally takes
time, even for students of physics.
We can get some feeling for it
from Einstein’s famous equation,
which tells us that an object that
has mass has an equivalent energy
that is found by multiplying the
mass by the speed of light squared.
Part of what makes Einstein’s
relativity so powerful is that
this equation shows that the
traditional Newtonian distinction
between energy and matter is
unnecessary. When we combine
this idea with the revelations
of quantum mechanics, we find
that where there is matter, there
“Where there is
matter, there is
energy. Where there
is energy, there is
the potential for
matter to appear”
is energy, and where there is
energy, there is the potential
for matter to randomly appear.
Because of this matter-energy
equivalence, particle physicists
tend to state measurements
of both mass and energy in
units of energy.
Relativity isn’t the only theory
of physics that informs our
thinking here. In Einstein’s theory,
empty space isn’t predicted
to have any energy in it, but in
quantum mechanics, empty space
(also known as the vacuum) will
have an energy associated with it.
It is here that we run into what
is often called the “cosmological
constant problem”. Quantum
calculations predict that there will
be an energy everywhere in space-
time, even when there is no matter
present. But astrophysical
observations tell a different story.
In 1998, the expansion of
space-time was found to be
accelerating with time and the
simplest theoretical explanation
for this is the presence of a
cosmological constant, a vacuum
energy that is everywhere.
Importantly, because of the
matter-energy equivalence,
vacuum energy has the potential
to interact with gravity in a
manner similar to that of massive
objects, except instead of acting
attractively, a vacuum energy
with a positive value will act like
a pressure pushing outward,
forcing space-time apart.
The exciting discovery of
cosmic acceleration has also
created a mystery because the
amount of vacuum energy needed
to match the data is much smaller
than the amount of vacuum
energy predicted by quantum
calculations. This is known as
the dark energy problem.
This is quite different from
the dark matter problem. As I
explained in an earlier column,
the dark matter problem is to
do with missing mass in galaxies
(15 May 2019, p 26).
We think dark matter manifests
as a massive object, while dark
energy doesn’t. Yet there is no
law of physics that says dark
matter and dark energy can’t be
connected. Together they make
up 96 per cent of the combined
matter-energy in the universe,
and it is natural to wonder
whether they are related.
Over the years, physicists have
considered this possibility, and
along with two of my colleagues, I
am now one of them. It is too early
to say whether our model works. It
may be that, in the end, the only
connection between dark matter
and dark energy is our ignorance
about how they both work. ❚