Evidence of Dark Matter

The first clues that there is more matter than meets the eye came from the Swiss-born American astronomer Fritz Zwicky in the 1930s; some initial work was also done by the American astronomer Vera Rubin. Zwicky measured the velocities of stars orbiting the galaxy, using the relativistic Doppler shift of their spectra (see this figure (a)). He found that velocity varied with distance from the center of the galaxy, as graphed in this figure (b). If the mass of the galaxy was concentrated in its center, as are its luminous stars, the velocities should decrease as the square root of the distance from the center. Instead, the velocity curve is almost flat, implying that there is a tremendous amount of matter in the galactic halo.

Although not immediately recognized for its significance, such measurements have now been made for many galaxies, with similar results. Further, studies of galactic clusters have also indicated that galaxies have a mass distribution greater than that obtained from their brightness (proportional to the number of stars), which also extends into large halos surrounding the luminous parts of galaxies. Observations of other EM wavelengths, such as radio waves and X rays, have similarly confirmed the existence of dark matter. Take, for example, X rays in the relatively dark space between galaxies, which indicates the presence of previously unobserved hot, ionized gas (see this figure (c)).

Figure a shows an eye looking toward a rotating spiral galaxy. Light coming from the galaxy arms that are rotating away from the observer is red shifted, and light coming from the galaxy arms that are rotating toward the observer is blue shifted. Figure b shows a graph of star rotation speed versus star radius. From zero radius, the curve increases steeply and peaks near two hundred and fifty kilometers per second at a radius of zero point five arbitrary units. The curve then decreases slightly and progresses to a radius of sixteen arbitrary units with ups and down between two hundred and two hundred and twenty five kilometers per second. Figure c shows an image of multiple galaxies and other objects against a black background. In the center of the image is a roughly circular purple haze, on the left and right of which are two slightly smaller and roughly circular blue haze regions.

Evidence for dark matter: (a) We can measure the velocities of stars relative to their galaxies by observing the Doppler shift in emitted light, usually using the hydrogen spectrum. These measurements indicate the rotation of a spiral galaxy. (b) A graph of velocity versus distance from the galactic center shows that the velocity does not decrease as it would if the matter were concentrated in luminous stars. The flatness of the curve implies a massive galactic halo of dark matter extending beyond the visible stars. (c) This is a computer-generated image of X rays from a galactic cluster. The X rays indicate the presence of otherwise unseen hot clouds of ionized gas in the regions of space previously considered more empty. (credit: NASA, ESA, CXC, M. Bradac (University of California, Santa Barbara), and S. Allen (Stanford University))

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Frontiers of Physics

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