The Standard Model Fundamental Particles: Dark Matter

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Research Paper Outline

All matter visible to the eye is made up of atoms, subdivided into protons and neutrons, and then subdivided again into quarks, leptons, and their corresponding antiparticle. These particles along with the five force carriers make up the Standard Model fundamental particles. However, modern research has shown that this baryonic matter is not the majority of the universe. It is estimated that it accounts for only roughly 2% of the known galaxy. The rest of the universe is made up of what is known as dark matter, so named because it cannot be detected using mass/luminosity ratios. Experiments have been created to detect candidates for this dark matter, and to prove the existence of dark matter.
Photometry was the relied method of determining mass by using well-defined mass to luminosity ratios. However, it was found that mass was not directly related to light (K Garrett, G Duda, 2011). In the early 1930’s, scientists like Fritz Zwicky made a discovery that standard mass to luminosity ratios gave the mass of a specific cluster as roughly 2% of what was observed by Zwicky himself (K Garrett, G Duda, 2011). Gravitational lensing was discovered in the 1970s to be another way to detect dark matter. It was used to determine the size and distance of distant objects (K Garrett, G Duda, 2011). Walsh was the first to observe this lensing in 1979. He and other scientists used the images and calculated a mass that was much larger than the mass inferred from mass/luminosity ratios. The most recent evidence came from the Bullet cluster, the result of a smaller cluster colliding with a larger galaxy cluster. NASA observed radiation from the collision that showed that the locations of the emission of radiation and the larges...

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... off by WIMPs using production in accelerators and direct detection. The most interesting thing about these articles is that the knowledge base about the universe is expanding rapidly and perhaps in the near future, scientists will be able to formulate advanced theorems about the galaxy and what is beyond.

Works Cited

Garrett, K., Duda G. Dark Matter: A Primer. Advances in Astronomy[serial online]. January 2011;:1-22. Available from: Academic Search Complete, Ipswich, MA. Accessed October 6, 2013
GHOSH, D., NYFFELER, A., & RAVINDRAN, V. (2011). Working group report: Physics at the Large Hadron Collider. Pramana: Journal of Physics, 76(5), 707-723. doi:10.1007/s12043-011-0080-9
Serfass, B. B. (2012). Results and Prospects for the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS) Experiment. Journal of Low Temperature Physics, 167(5/6), 1119-1124. doi: 10.1007/s10909-012-0598-3

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