Space.com | Science & Astronomy | 2023 Jan 30
Intergalactic gas clouds are slightly hotter than they should be, new research claims, and theoretical particles called 'dark photons' could explain it.
Observations suggest that the intergalactic gas in our universe is a little hotter than it should be.
Recently, a team of astrophysicists have used sophisticated computer simulations to propose a radical solution: an exotic form of dark matter known as "dark photons" could be heating the place up.
These strange particles would be the carriers of a new, fifth force of nature that normal matter does not experience, but occasionally these dark photons can flip their identities to become regular photons, providing a source of heat. ...
Computer simulations of the evolution of those gas clouds predict them to be just a little bit colder than we observe, and so perhaps something is heating up those clouds that isn't currently accounted for in our astrophysical simulations. ...
Dark Matter as an Intergalactic Heat Source
Physics Magazine | 2022 Nov 18
Comparison of Low-Redshift Lyman-α Forest Observations to
Hydrodynamical Simulations with Dark Photon Dark Matter ~ James S. Bolton et al
- Physical Review Letters 129(21):1102 (18 Nov 2022) DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.129.211102
simulations of the low-redshift Lyman-α forest ~ James S. Bolton et al
- arXiv > astro-ph > arXiv:2206.13520 > 27 Jun 2022