Dark Energy Survey probes dark matter with the smallest galaxies

This image shows the result of two numerical simulations predicting the distribution of dark matter around a galaxy similar to our Milky Way. The left panel assumes that dark matter particles were moving fast in the early universe (warm dark matter), while the right panel assumes that dark matter particles were moving slowly (cold dark matter). The warm dark matter model predicts many fewer small clumps of dark matter surrounding our galaxy and thus many fewer satellite galaxies that inhabit these small clumps of dark matter. By measuring the number of satellite galaxies, scientists can distinguish between these models of dark matter. Image: Bullock and Boylan-Kolchin (2017); simulations by V. Robles, T. Kelley and B. Bozek, in collaboration with Bullock and Boylan-Kolchin.

Scientists in the Dark Energy Survey released results that have been five years in the making. Researchers used the world’s most complete census of dwarf galaxies around our Milky Way galaxy to probe the nature of dark matter, an invisible form of matter that dominates the universe. These new measurements provide information about what dark matter can and cannot be made of.

In particular, the new results constrain the minimum mass of the dark matter particles, as well as the strength of interactions between dark matter and normal matter.

According to these new results, a dark matter particle must be heavier than a zeptoelectronvolt, which is 10^-21 electronvolts. That’s one trillionth of a trillionth of the mass of an electron. This study also shows that dark matter’s interactions with normal matter must be roughly 1,000 times weaker than the weak nuclear force. Of the known forces, only gravity is weaker.