Abstract
The evidence that has accumulated since the 1930s is that the mass of the Universe is dominated by an exotic nonbaryonic form of matter largely draped around the galaxies. This dark matter approximates an initially low-pressure gas of particles that interact only with gravity, but we know little more than that. Searches for detection thus must follow many difficult paths to a great discovery: what the Universe is made of.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals
Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription
$29.99 / 30 days
cancel any time
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 digital issues and online access to articles
$119.00 per year
only $9.92 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Zwicky, F. Die Rotverschiebung von extragalaktischen Nebeln. Helv. Phys. Acta 6, 110–127 (1933).
Smith, S. The mass of the Virgo cluster. Astrophys. J. 83, 23–30 (1936).
Davis, M. & Peebles, P. J. E. A survey of galaxy redshifts. V — The two-point position and velocity correlations. Astrophys. J. 267, 465–482 (1983).
Ostriker, J. P., Peebles, P. J. E. & Yahil, A. The size and mass of galaxies and the mass of the Universe. Astrophys. J. Lett. 193, L1–L4 (1974).
Roberts, M. S. M 31 and a brief history of dark matter. ASP Conf. Series 3, 95, 283–288 (2008).
Rubin, V. C. One hundred years of rotating galaxies. Publ. Astron. Soc. Pac. 112, 747–750 (2000).
Bertone, G. & Hooper, D. A history of dark matter. Preprint at https://arxiv.org/abs/1605.04909 (2016).
Ostriker, J. P. & Peebles, P. J. E. A numerical study of the stability of flattened galaxies: or, can cold galaxies survive? Astrophys. J. 186, 467–480 (1973).
Faber, S. M. & Gallagher, J. S. Masses and mass-to-light ratios of galaxies. Ann. Rev. Astron. Astrophys. 17, 135–187 (1979).
Uson, J. M. & Wilkinson, D. T. Search for small-scale anisotropy in the cosmic microwave background. Phys. Rev. Lett. 49, 1463–1465 (1982).
Peebles, P. J. E. Large-scale background temperature and mass fluctuations due to scale-invariant primeval perturbatiobs. Astrophys. J. Lett. 263 L1–L5 (1982).
Gershtein, S. S. & Zel’dovich, Y. B. Rest mass of muonic neutrino and cosmology. J. Exp. Theor. Phys. Lett. 4, 120–122 (1966).
Cowsik, R. & McClelland, J. An upper limit on the neutrino rest mass. Phys. Rev. Lett. 29, 669–670 (1972).
Marx, G. & Szalay, A. S. in Neutrino-72 Vol. 1 (eds Frankel, A. & Marx, G. ) 191–195 (OMKDT-Technoinform, 1972).
Cowsik, R. & McClelland, J. Gravity of neutrinos of nonzero mass in astrophysics. Astrophys. J. 180, 7–10 (1973).
Szalay, A. S. & Marx, G. Neutrino rest mass from cosmology. Astron. Astrophys. 49, 437–441 (1976).
Doroshkevich, A. G. et al. Cosmological impact of the neutrino rest mass. Ann. NY Acad. Sci. 375, 32–42 (1981).
Lee, B. W. & Weinberg, S. Cosmological lower bound on heavy-neutrino masses. Phys. Rev. Lett. 39, 165–168 (1977).
Einstein, A. The Meaning of Relativity 119 (Princeton Univ. Press, 1923).
Gunn, J. E., Lee, B. W., Lerche, I., Schramm, D. N. & Steigman, G. Some astrophysical consequences of the existence of a heavy stable neutral lepton. Astrophys. J. 223, 1015–1031 (1978).
Pagels, H. & Primack, J. R. Supersymmetry, cosmology, and new physics at teraelectronvolt energies. Phys. Rev. Lett. 48, 223–226 (1982).
Ipser, J. & Sikivie, P. Can galactic halos be made of axions?. Phys. Rev. Lett. 50, 925–927 (1983).
Guth, A. H. Inflationary Universe: a possible solution to the horizon and flatness problems. Phys. Rev. D 23, 347–356 (1981).
Linde, A. D. A new inflationary Universe scenario: a possible solution of the horizon, flatness, homogeneity, isotropy and primordial monopole problems. Phys. Lett. B 108, 389–393 (1982).
Albrecht, A. & Steinhardt, P. J. Cosmology for grand unified theories with radiatively induced symmetry breaking. Phys. Rev. Lett. 48, 1220–1223 (1982).
Peebles, P. J. E. Tests of cosmological models constrained by inflation. Astrophys. J. 284, 439–444 (1984).
Turner, M. S., Steigman, G. & Krauss, L. M. Flatness of the Universe: reconciling theoretical prejudices with observational data. Phys. Rev. Lett. 52, 2090–2093 (1984).
Blumenthal, G. R., Faber, S. M., Primack, J. R. & Rees, M. J. Formation of galaxies and large-scale structure with cold dark matter. Nature, 311, 517–525 (1984).
Dicke, R. H. Gravitation and the Universe 62 (American Philosophical Society, 1970).
Dicke, R. H. & Peebles, P. J. E. in General Relativity: An Einstein Centenary Survey (eds Hawking, S. W. & Israel, W. ) 504–517 (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1979).
Geiss, J. & Reeves, H. Cosmic and solar system abundances of deuterium and helium-3. Astron. Astrophys. 18, 126–132 (1972).
Gott, J. R. III, Gunn, J. E., Schramm, D. N. & Tinsley, B. M. An unbound Universe. Astrophys. J. 194, 543–553 (1974).
Boesgaard, A. M. & Steigman, G. Big Bang nucleosynthesis: theories and observations. Ann. Rev. Astron. Astrophys. 23, 319–378 (1985).
Bean, A. J. A complete galaxy redshift sample — I. The peculiar velocities between galaxy pairs and the mean mass density of the Universe. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 205, 604–624 (1983).
Peebles, P. J. E. The mean mass density of the Universe. Nature 321, 27–32 (1986).
Malaney, R. A. & Fowler, W. A. Late-time neutron diffusion and nucleosynthesis in a post-QCD inhomogeneous Ω b = 1 Universe. Astrophys. J. 333, 14–20 (1988).
Dawid, R. String Theory and the Scientific Method (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2013).
Primack, J. R., Seckel, D. & Sadoulet, B. Detection of cosmic dark matter. Annu. Rev. Nucl. Part. Sci. 38, 751–801 (1988).
Davis, M., Efstathiou, G., Frenk, C. S. & White, S. D. M. The evolution of large-scale structure in a Universe dominated by cold dark matter. Astrophys. J. 292, 371–394 (1985).
Lilje, P. B. Abundance of rich clusters of galaxies: a test for cosmological parameters. Astrophys. J. Lett. 386, L33–L36 (1992).
Milgrom, M. A modification of the Newtonian dynamics as a possible alternative to the hidden mass hypothesis. Astrophys. J. 270, 365–370 (1983).
Lelli, F., McGaugh, S. S. & Schombert, J. M. The radial acceleration relation in rotationally supported galaxies. Phys. Rev. Lett. 117, 201101 (2016).
Ostriker, J. P. & Cowie, L. L. Galaxy formation in an intergalactic medium dominated by explosions. Astrophys. J. Lett. 243, L127–L131 (1981).
Zel’dovich, Ya. B. Cosmological fluctuations produced near a singularity. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 192, 663–666 (1980).
Peebles, P. J. E. An isocurvature cold dark matter cosmogony. I. A worked example of evolution through inflation. Astrophys. J. 510, 523–530 (1999).
Faber, S. M. What I learned this week in Paris (about cosmic velocity fields). In Cosmic Velocity Fields: Proc. 9th IAP Astrophysics Meeting (eds Bouchet, F. R. & Lachièze-Rey, M. ) 485–496 (Editions Frontieres, 1993).
Maddox, S. J., Efstathiou, G., Sutherland, W. J. & Loveday, J. Galaxy correlations on large scales. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 242, 43P-47P (1990).
Bartlett, J. G., Blanchard, A., Silk, J. & Turner, M. S. The case for a Hubble constant of 30 km s−1 Mpc−1. Science 267, 980–983 (1995).
Ostriker, J. P. & Steinhardt, P. J. The observational case for a low-density Universe with a non-zero cosmological constant. Nature 377, 600–602 (1995).
Kamionkowski, M., Ratra, B., Spergel, D. N. & Sugiyama, N. Cosmic background radiation anisotropy in an open inflation, cold dark matter cosmogony. Astrophys. J. Lett. 434, L1–L4 (1994).
Riess, A. G. et al. Observational evidence from supernovae for an accelerating Universe and a cosmological constant. Astron. J. 116, 1009–1038 (1998).
Perlmutter . et al. Measurements of Ω and Λ from 42 high-redshift supernovae. Astrophys. J. 517, 565–586 (1999).
Balbi, A. et al. Constraints on cosmological parameters from MAXIMA-1. Astrophys. J. Lett. 545, L1–L4 (2000).
Riess, A. G. et al. A 2. 4. determination of the local value of the Hubble constant. Astrophys. J. 826, 56 (2016).
Strauss, M. A. Questions and controversies in the measurement and interpretation of large-scale flows. Cosmic Flows Workshop ASP Conf. Series 201, 3–13 (2000).
Davis, M. & Nusser, A. Re-examination of large scale structure and cosmic flows. IAU Symp. 308, 310–317 (2016).
Planck Collaboration. Planck 2013 results. I. Overview of products and scientific results. Astron. Astrophys. 571 A1 (2014).
Anderson L. et al. The clustering of galaxies in the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey: baryon acoustic oscillations in the Data Releases 10 and 11 Galaxy samples. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 441, 24–62 (2014).
Peebles, P. J. E. Primeval adiabatic perturbations: constraints from the mass distribution. Astrophys. J. 248, 885–897 (1981).
Shanks, T. Arguments for an Ω = 1, low H0, baryon dominated Universe. Vista. Astron. 28, 595–609 (1985).
Percival, W. J. et al. The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey: the power spectrum and the matter content of the Universe. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 327, 1297–1306 (2001).
Eisenstein, D. J. et al. Detection of the baryon acoustic peak in the large-scale correlation function of SDSS luminous red galaxies. Astrophys. J. 633, 560–574 (2005).
Verlinde, E. P. Emergent gravity and the dark Universe. Preprint at https://arxiv.org/abs/1611.02269 (2016).
Acknowledgements
I have profited from discussions with D. Bond, S. Faber, J. Gunn, J. Ostriker, M. Rees, G. Steigman and P. Steinhardt.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The author declares no competing financial interests.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Peebles, P. Growth of the nonbaryonic dark matter theory. Nat Astron 1, 0057 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-017-0057
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-017-0057
This article is cited by
-
Towards a microwave single-photon counter for searching axions
npj Quantum Information (2022)