Does the Sun Have a Dark Matter Core?

[n2doc]

Dark matter has become trapped at the center of the sun and is cooling down its core temperature according to a study by Dr Stephen West from the Department of Physics at Royal , University of London.

“Dark matter makes up more than 80 per cent of the total mass of the universe. We know that dark matter exists, but to date it has never been produced in a laboratory or directly observed in any experiment, as a result we have very little information about what it actually is. It is important that we examine all possible ways of probing the nature of dark matter and the sun could provide us with an unexpected laboratory in which to do this,” says Dr West.

Dark matter is expected to form a halo around our galaxy and since the sun is in motion around the galaxy it experiences a dark matter "wind" as it moves through this halo. Some of the dark matter particles may collide with the elements in the sun and become gravitationally captured by the sun, which could lead to a build up of dark matter particles at the center of the sun.

The research team’s simulations show that the effect of this build up is to reduce the temperature of the solar core. The dark matter particles can absorb heat at the core and transfer it out towards the surface, decreasing the temperature of the core. This change in temperature affects the number of neutrinos produced as by-products in nuclear reactions within the Sun and it is hoped that by examining these neutrinos we can gain information about the Sun's core temperature and whether dark matter plays an important role in solar physics. This in turn could provide information about the mass of individual dark matter particles and how they interact with the elements in the sun.

“The next step in the work is to look more closely at the change in the predicted number of neutrinos produced in the sun as a result of dark matter collecting at the core and to examine the sensitivity of existing neutrino experiments to this change," adds West. In addition, an investigation of the possibility of probing this type of dark matter at the Large Hadron Collider is planned. The LHC could provide complimentary information about the properties of dark matter which along with the information from the sun may lead to a clearer picture of one of the more puzzling issues in physics.”

The Daily Galaxy via Royal Holloway, University of London
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2011/09/does-the-sun-have-a-dark-matter-core.html

[Vincardog]

1. "We know that dark matter exists" IS that one of the KNOWN unknowns?

[Leftist Agitator]

2. Lol...

Dark Matter doesn't exist. But cosmologists are so wedded to the Standard Model that they insist that it must. When they find experimental evidence of the Higgs boson, I might think that they're on to something, but until then, I'm of the opinion that the Standard Model is fundamentally flawed. Granted, the Standard Model is the best representation of the Universe that currently exists, but that does not make it infallible.

"The dark matter particles can absorb heat at the core and transfer it out towards the surface, decreasing the temperature of the core."

Thermodynamics would tend to disagree.

[sudopod]

5. Just curious, have you ever solved a partial differential equation before?

I'm not asking to be mean. It might be a good time, though, to question whether you know what things there are that you don't know.

Wikipedia has a good summary of the reasons we think dark matter could be real:

"Dark matter was postulated by Fritz Zwicky in 1934 to account for evidence of "missing mass" in the orbital velocities of galaxies in clusters. Subsequently, other observations have indicated the presence of dark matter in the universe; these observations include the rotational speeds of galaxies, gravitational lensing of background objects by galaxy clusters such as the Bullet Cluster, and the temperature distribution of hot gas in galaxies and clusters of galaxies.

Dark matter plays a central role in state-of-the-art modeling of structure formation and galaxy evolution, and has measurable effects on the anisotropies observed in the cosmic microwave background. All these lines of evidence suggest that galaxies, clusters of galaxies, and the universe as a whole contain far more matter than that which interacts with electromagnetic radiation. The largest part of dark matter, which does not interact with electromagnetic radiation, is not only "dark" but also, by definition, utterly transparent.<4>

As important as dark matter is believed to be in the cosmos, direct evidence of its existence and a concrete understanding of its nature have remained elusive. Though the theory of dark matter remains the most widely accepted theory to explain the anomalies in observed galactic rotation, some alternative theoretical approaches have been developed which broadly fall into the categories of modified gravitational laws, and quantum gravitational laws.<5>"

While there are other valid alternative ideas out there, I wouldn't dismiss the idea of dark matter out of hand without a very good reason.

[Nihil]

6. No offence but I don't think that poster's mathematical skills need to be questioned ...

> Just curious, have you ever solved a partial differential equation before?

... in order to point out that the quote from the OP ("We know that dark
matter exists") is inappropriately blending a matter of personal faith
with the scientific evidence.


>> We know that dark matter exists, but to date it has never been produced
>> in a laboratory or directly observed in any experiment, as a result we have
>> very little information about what it actually is.

Everything after the word "exists" proves that the word "know" should not
have been used.

This isn't to say that it's a handy hypothesis to use nor that it will never
be proven true, simply that at the current time it is not a "known" fact - merely
a working guess that fits (i.e., is consistent with) certain observations.

If he'd used the phrase "we think dark matter could be real" (as you did)
then I for one would not disagree with him but using the quoted phrase
"we know that dark matter exists" is simply wrong.

(And yes, I *have* solved partial differential equations before! :P )

[eppur_se_muova]

3. Sounds like he's been reading science fiction ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xeelee_Sequence_species#Photino_birds

[HysteryDiagnosis]

4. Yes, most certainly. n/t