(ORDO NEWS) — We may not have found many planetary systems like our solar system. However, they do have one thing in common: they seem to be made from the good old baryonic matter that makes up our planetary system.
But what if there are planets made of other material: particles outside the Standard Model? What if there are planets made of a mysterious material we call dark matter?
No one can answer this question one way or another, at least not with our current knowledge.
But a team of scientists led by theoretical physicist Yang Bai of the University of Wisconsin-Madison wanted to know how these hypothetical planets would manifest and if we could detect them, if they were real.
Short answer. yes, if certain conditions are met, and the researchers outlined why in a paper published on the arXiv preprint server.
There are many unsolved mysteries in this universe of ours, but one of the biggest must be dark matter. We don’t know what dark matter is, and we don’t know what it looks like or what it’s made of.
The only thing we know for sure is that the gravity in the universe greatly exceeds the amount of baryonic matter.
After you’ve accounted for every galaxy, every star, and every drifting cloud of dust, the silence and darkness between the stars, gravity is still way more than it should be.
We don’t know what’s responsible, but we call this mysterious source dark matter, and there are several theoretical candidates that scientists are investigating.
In general, these candidates can be divided into two categories: individual particles, and composites, including macroscopic dark matter blobs or macros, which can have planetary-scale mass.
And as Bai and his colleagues explain, “A macroscopic state of dark matter with a mass and/or radius similar to that of a planet will behave like a dark exoplanet if confined to a star system, even if the physics underlying the object resembles that something completely different.”
Our current methods for detecting exoplanets are currently largely based on the influence of an exoplanet on the light of its parent star. We can also use this information to measure the properties of the exoplanet.
The passage of an exoplanet between us and its star, known as a transit, will cause the star’s light to dim slightly. Astronomers can measure the depth of the obscuration to calculate the exoplanet’s radius.
Exoplanets also cause their stars to move slightly as they move around a common center of gravity, which can be detected by changes in the wavelength of the star’s light.
The amount of motion, called radial velocity, can be used to calculate the mass of an exoplanet.
With these measurements, we can calculate the density of an exoplanet and thus determine how it works. Low density, like Jupiter, implies a huge thin atmosphere, a gas giant.
The higher density, like that of the Earth, implies a rocky composition. As a rule, the former have a larger radius, while the latter have a smaller one.
This could be used to detect potential dark matter exoplanets, according to Bai and his colleagues.
A dark matter exoplanet could have properties different from what is expected of regular exoplanets, contradicting our current understanding of planet formation.
For example, you can get an exoplanet with a higher density than iron, or with such a low density that its existence cannot be explained.
Currently, no such emissions have been detected, but a scientist can dream.
In addition, astronomers have been able to probe exoplanet atmospheres based on transit data.
They measure the spectrum of a star’s light as it travels and compare it to the star’s normal light, looking for dimmer and brighter wavelengths.
This means that some of the light has been absorbed and/or re-emitted. molecules in the atmosphere of an exoplanet; scientists can analyze this data to determine what kind of molecules they are.
If serious anomalies are found in the transit spectrum, this may indicate the presence of a dark matter exoplanet.
If the radial velocity indicates that an exoplanet must pass and then no transit is observed, this could be a clue.
to dark matter exoplanets. And if the transit dip, known as the light curve, has an unexpected shape, that could be a clue, too.
“Because of its tiny but non-vanishing strength of interaction with Standard Model particles, a dark matter exoplanet may not be completely opaque, making the shape of the light curve distinct from that of an ordinary exoplanet,” the researchers write.
Bai and his colleagues calculated what this light curve might look like, setting up a simple framework for a more sophisticated theoretical analysis.
There are several ways to improve performance, the team notes.
For example, they considered only circular orbits; however, many exoplanets have elliptical orbits, especially those that could be captured by the star’s gravity, as one would expect from dark matter exoplanets.
In addition, the properties of the planets have remained relatively simple.
“Further study of the formation of dark matter exoplanets in a star system and the capture of dark matter exoplanets will help elucidate the possibility of detecting dark matter exoplanets and will be needed.
Establish limits on the content of dark matter exoplanets if they are not detected, ”the researchers conclude.
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