World Science Scholars

3.4 Superfluid Dark Matter

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    • What do you think of Professor Khoury’s proposal on superfluid dark matter?

    • It’s certainly an interesting take.

    • If superfluidity sets in at mK-level, the CMB-radiation being around 2.7 K, at least the disk of a spiral galaxy, especially the core (or bubble) is significantly warmer than that (not to mention a galaxy cluster, in which the ICM heats up pretty much), it is hard to understand how the mK-level could be attained and maintained. Unless this is explained to the inclined visitor, it is an interesting theory, but lacks physical relevance.
      By the way: Wasn’t it mentioned earlier that dark matter is NOT a particle known from the Standard Model ?! Now we are told about dark matter atoms ?!

      • I was thinking of the same thing regarding the temperature of the CMB at 2.7 K. How would the dark matter attain the necessary 0.1mK in order to become a superfluid (unless it can be a superfluid at higher temperatures, like liquid Helium can be a superfluid at 3K)?

        EDIT: I think, now thinking about it again, it could actually work despite the 2.7K of the CMB, if the dark matter doesn’t interact at all electromagnetically (after all, that’s why we call it “dark matter”), therefore it’s not feeling “the heat” from the photons in the universe. Then, only the gravitational effect is felt and Khouri’s model works.

    • Too many complications to explain. (1) Surprised that phonons can travel fast enough round the dark matter in the galaxy to produce the required isotropic effect on gravity. (2) Temperature of the universe appears to be too high 2.7 K to allow equilibrium temperature of 0.1mK (3) Black holes nuclear reactions in stars are massive sources of heat and turbulence in the superfluid which could cause the loss of its superfluid characteristics (4) Still need to explain where these minute particles come from in the first place (5) Seems to add a level of complexity “Occam’s Razor” which I am intuitively uncomfortable about!

    • My question is “how is the temperature of the dark matter measured?”. Just its average kinetic energy? Also, how does it lose temperature? Does it radiate anything or does it gets “colder” just as kinetic energy becomes gravitational potential energy?

    • I think we can produce energy from it.

    • interesting, thanks for the course.

    • Hello Ladies and Gentlemen,

      Superfluidity is very resonable. In space, even closer to it in the Nunavut circumpolar region we see terrestrial commonplace things go all haywirey.

      Molecular motion of water ceases at minus 40°C. Few have seen this, but we all can.

      A strange thing is that minus 55°C feels similar in cold to minus 40°C, and it may be due to the threshold of molecular motion.

      When watching great tall northern lights very close above in Nunavut, we see the outter casing of ice while the interior shows a hollow region for a coloured flow of material that is not solid.

      Other areas such as Edmonton in Alberta, Canada, have more wispy and far faster moving northern lights undefined and contained by massive columns of ice… Or cryovolcanoes… Floating in the sky.

      When we consider the sodium layer 90 km above Hawaii`s Keck Observatory, we see this sodium layer may be closer to the Earth surface. Atmospheres are not as tall in circumpolar regions.

      Cryovolcanoes on a lower and condensed sodium layer may occur, but polarcusp regions contain stellar and interstellar dropins, as well as polar outflow.

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