A new study suggests that there may be a "dark mirror" universe within our universe where atoms failed to form

What if the dark matter universe was a mirror of our own, just with a set of broken rules? A new theory suggests this may explain why dark matter is abundant but invisible.

Dark matter It is the mysterious and unknown matter that appears to make up the bulk of the mass in the universe. For every 2 pounds (1 kg) of normal matter, there is approximately 10 pounds (5 kg) of dark matter. It does not react with light or ordinary matter. The only way scientists can detect them is through the subtle influence of gravity on normal matter, such as the movements of stars within galaxies and… Growth of ultra-large structures In cosmic time.

It might be easy to think that because matter and dark matter operate by different rules, one would be completely in control of the other. But despite having very different properties, the amounts of normal matter and dark matter are still in the same ballpark. That seems like a strange coincidence. To explain this, scientists have suggested that there may be some kind of hidden connection between them. They have published their research January 22 in preprint arXiv.

The researchers hypothesized that for every physical interaction in normal matter, there is a mirror for it in the world of dark matter. The researchers said this would be a new kind of symmetry in nature, linking the worlds of natural and dark matter.

This symmetry will help explain why dark matter and regular matter are roughly the same abundance.

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In this paper, the researchers point to another strange coincidence. In ordinary matter physics, a neutron and a proton have approximately the same mass, enabling them to bond together and form stable atoms. If the proton were even slightly heavier, it would be completely unstable and decay in just minutes, making the formation of atoms impossible. In this imaginary scenario, the universe would be left with a sea of floating neutrons.

Researchers suggest that this fractured fantasy universe may be a reality in the dark matter mirror version of our own universe. A special combination of physics led to the proton having roughly the same mass as the neutron; Perhaps in the mirror of dark matter, this combination of physics played out differently, causing the “dark proton” to evaporate and leaving behind a sea of “dark neutrinos” – what we call dark matter.

While this proposed mirror model allows for the possibility of rich interactions between dark matter particles – dark atoms, dark chemistry and… Dark periodic table of dark elements – The researchers note that there can never be too much interaction. If dark matter interacts with itself a lot, it will tend to clump much more than scientists think. So most dark matter should be relatively simple — a sea of floating neutral particles.

These additional reactions, which will serve as a dark mirror to our chemical world, may enable future scientists to test this theory. At the beginning of the universe, natural matter underwent nucleosynthesis, when the first elements were formed in nuclear plasma. If this new idea is correct, it means that mirror nucleosynthesis also occurs in dark matter. In those chaotic early days, channels may have opened between the two worlds, enabling them to influence each other.

By carefully measuring the rate of element formation — something the next generation of cosmic observatories hope to do — scientists may be able to find evidence of one of these channels and glimpse the dark mirror universe.