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Revealing the secret language of dark matter

29 April 2022
The research has been published in “The Astrophysical Journal”

In the Universe, dark matter and standard matter “talk” to each other using a secret language. This “discussion” happens thanks to gravity, scientists say, but not in a way they can fully comprehend. A new SISSA study published in “The Astrophysical Journal” sheds light on this long-standing issue.

The authors of the research, Ph.D Student Giovanni Gandolfi and supervisors Andrea Lapi and Stefano Liberati, propose a special property for dark matter called a “non-minimal coupling with gravity”. This new type of interaction can modify dark matter gravitational influence on standard 'baryonic' matter. 

According to the authors, the 'non-minimal coupling' could be the key to decrypt the enigmatic dialogue between the two components, possibly solving one of the biggest open questions about dark matter's nature.

To prove the hypothesis, the assumption has been tested and then confirmed with experimental data from thousands of spiral galaxies. (Image by Pixabay)

Press release

Full paper