Astronomers go hunting for mysterious q-balls

Our universe could function giant, macroscopic clumps of dark matter referred to as q-balls. These q-balls can be completely invisible, however they could reveal their presence by way of tiny magnifications of starlight.

We don’t presently perceive the character of dark matter. However we do know that it exists. A number of unbiased traces of proof all point out that the overwhelming majority of matter within the universe doesn’t work together with gentle or with regular matter. It’s, for all intents and functions, invisible. However we will see the proof for dark matter in all places we glance by way of its gravitational influence on regular matter. For instance, galaxies rotate far too rapidly given the quantity of seen matter within them. Clusters of galaxies have gasoline that’s far too scorching to be accounted for by regular matter. Even the event of the large-scale construction of the universe occurred too quickly for the quantity of matter that we will see.

Till now we have a greater understanding of dark matter and its nature, we should work to develop concepts of what it could be. Most theories of dark matter assume that It’s some unique sort of fermion. Fermions are the kind of matter which can be the constructing blocks of nature, like electrons and protons. However different theories of dark matter are somewhat extra unique, arguing that it could be a type of boson. Bosons are usually related to the drive carriers of nature, just like the photon that carries the electromagnetic force and the gluon that carries the robust nuclear drive.

However dark matter could also be a completely new sort of boson. Whether it is, it may need some surprisingly unusual properties. For instance, this unique type of dark matter is probably not totally clean all through a galaxy. As a substitute it might kind secure clumps the scale of stars. Referred to as q-balls, these clumps would stay secure however invisible, drifting by way of each galaxy.

In a latest paper revealed on the arXiv preprint server, a group of the astrophysicists have proposed a way to seek for q-balls. As a result of they don’t emit or soak up gentle, we won’t search for them by way of the traditional astronomical strategies. However q-balls would nonetheless have loads of matter compressed into a comparatively small quantity. This may bend the trail of sunshine the identical as every other large object within the universe.

If a q-ball had been to occur to move by way of our line of sight to a distant star, then as we had been watching that star the sunshine would get briefly bent and magnified in an impact referred to as microlensing. The impact can be extremely tiny however in precept measurable.

In reality the group behind the paper took current microlensing surveys to see if they may rule out the existence of q-balls. They discovered that if q-balls exist, they’ll solely comprise up to some p.c of all of the dark matter within the universe.

The outcomes aren’t conclusive come what may, however they do signify another step in the direction of understanding the character of dark matter.