Dark Matter

Candidates for the dark matter include:

• Neutrinos
• Interstellar Gas Clouds
• Comets and Asteroids
• Interstellar (rogue) Planets
• Brown Dwarfs (< ~0.08 M_sun)
• Red Dwarfs (~0.08 M_sun < WD < ~0.4 M_sun
• White Dwarfs (~0.3 M_sun < WD < 1.4 M_sun)
• Black Dwarfs (extremely old, cool white dwarfs, none should exist in the universe yet)
• Neutron Stars (1.4 M_sun < NS < ~3-4 M_sun)
• Black Holes: Massive, Stellar and Micro (> 4 M_sun) [derived from a single star]
• Dark Matter is an illusion.  The need for Dark Matter to explain the rotational velocities of galaxies could simply be wrong, if the MOND theory is correct.
• and of course my favorite choice:  Dyson Spheres or Matrioshka Brains

• MACHOS (Massive Compact Halo Objects)
• WIMPS (Weakly Interacting Massive Particles)
• superWIMPS (potentially resulting from the decay of WIMPS)

• Neutrino Detectors
• Superkamiokande, Kamioka-cho, Yoshiki-gun, Gifu-ken, Japan, 1,000 m underground.
• The Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO), Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, 2072 m underground.
• Gallex, Abruzzo region of Italy, in the Gran Sasso Tunnel, ~1400 m underground.
• UK Dark Matter Calaboration, Cleveland, UK, 1100 m underground.
• HOMESTAKE, Homestake mine, South Dakota, ~1478 m underground.
• See also: The Ultimate Neutrino Page; Neutrion Detection Experiments; Neutrion Oscillation Industry ; History of the Neutrinos and Neutrino Detectors & Beams
• Gravity Wave Detectors
• GEO 600: 600m armlength laser interferometer
• LIGO: armlength laser inteferometers: 2km @ Hanford, WA & 4km @ Livingston, LA
• See also Gravitational Wave Detectors @ Syracuse
• X-ray Observatories
• Chandra Observatory Center (@ Harvard) and CXO Project Science (@ MSFC)
• XMM Newton (GSFC summary)
• Beppo SAX (GSFC summary)
• Ulysses (GSFC summary)
• ROSAT;  (GSFC summary)
• See also: X-ray Astronomy and Satellites @ GSFC.
• Infrared Telescopes
• Dark Matter Searches
• CDMS (Cryogenic Dark Matter Search) searching for WIMPS (@ Berkeley)
• See Also: Non-Baryonic Dark Matter Experiments and Other Dark Matter Searches
• Gravitational Microlensing Studies
• AGAPE (Andromeda Galaxy and Amplified Pixels Experiment) Project
• DUO (Disc Unseen Objects)
• EROS Experiment (Experience pour la Recherche d'Objets Sombres) (@ Laboratoire Accelerateur Lineair) [Alert page]
• MACHO Project (in Canada) (Australian Mirror) [MACHO Alert page (@ U. Washington)]
• MEGA (Microlensing Experiment Towards the Galaxy in Andromeda)
• MOA (Microlensing Observations in Astrophysics) (in New Zealand) [Alert page]
• OGLE (Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment) (in Poland) (Princeton Mirror) [Alert page]
• Follow-up collaborations:
• MPS (Microlensing Planet Search) Project
• PLANET (Probing Lensing Anomalies NETwork) Collaboration (in the Netherlands)
• GMAN (Global Microlensing Alert Network)
• Conferences:
• Microlensing 2000, 21-25 February 2000, Cape Town, South Africa
• 4th International Workshop on Gravitational Microlensing Surveys, 15-17 January 1998, Paris, France
• 3rd International Workshop on Gravitational Microlensing Surveys, 6-8 March 1997, Notre Dame, Indiana, USA
• 2nd International Workshop on Gravitational Microlensing Surveys, 29-31 January 1996, Orsay, France
• IAU Symposium 173, Astrophysical Applications of Gravitational Microlensing, 9-14 July 1995, Melbourne, Australia
• Telescopes:
• The Galactic Exoplanet Survey Telescope (GEST): A Proposed Space-Based Microlensing Survey for Terrestrial Extra-Solar Planets (astro-ph/0003102). Proposes to survey 10⁸ stars to discover 1300-5000 planets over a 2.5 year mission, including potentially 100 planets of ~ Earth mass.

Missing Mass Pages

• Is some of the missing mass in brown dwarf stars or similar sized objects?

in What is the universe made of? by Davison E. Soper @ U. Oregon.

Dark Matter Pages

• Physics 250:  The Dark Side of the Universe (tele-taught course @ Berkeley)
• Dark Matter (@ Imagine the Universe! from NASAGordon Space Flight Center)
• Mysterious Dark Matter (@ NCSA)
• Dark Matter (@ Berkeley)
• The Dark Matter Universe (by G. Bothun @ U. Oregon)
• COSMOLOGICAL DARK MATTER: An Overview by Alex Gary Markowitz
• Dark Matter, Cosmology, and Large-Scale Structure of the Universe by Jonathan Dursi
• Dark Matter in Astronomy Unbound by Stuart Clark
• Mark's Dark Matter Web page
• Eamonn Kerins Dark Matter page
• Dark Matter backgrounder at STSCI (November 1994).
• Dan Vergano, "Dark matter: Scientists debate what space is really made of", Florida Today (June 5, 2001).
• Lectures from  Astronomy 201/211 by Brian Martin at King's University College
• Rotational Velocities in Galaxies - A Closer Look
• The Visible Universe - Just the Tip of the Iceberg
• Recent HST findings: Hubble rules out a leading explanation for dark matter based on papers from Bahcall (ApJ 11/1/94) and Parasce (ApJ 2/10/95).

MACHO Pages

• Researchers Find MACHOS Comprise Smaller Percentage of Galactic Dark Matter Than Anticipated (from MACHO research team at llnl.gov)
• A MACHO View of Galactic Dark Matter  (@ GSFC)
• Massive compact halo objects as dark matter candidates,

in What is the universe made of? by Davison E. Soper (@ U. Oregon.)
• MACHO: MAssive Compact Halo Object (@ Cornell)
• MACHOS (Massive Astrophysical Compact Halo ObjectS) (@ Alfred University, NY)

WIMP Pages

• Weakly interacting massive particles as dark matter candidates,

in What is the universe made of? by Davison E. Soper @ U. Oregon

superWIMP Pages

• "New Class Of Superweak Particles May Reveal Secrets Of Hidden Mass In Universe", Science Daily (9 Jul 2003).
• "UCI study finds dark matter is for superWIMPs", UCI Press Release (8 Jul 2003).
• Jonathan L. Feng, Arvind Rajaraman, and Fumihiro Takayama, "Superweakly Interacting Massive Particles", Physics Review Letters 91:011302 (3 Jul 2003).

Gravitational Microlensing Pages

• What is a gravitational lens?,

in What is the universe made of? by Davison E. Soper @ U. Oregon
• Gravitational Microlensing: An introduction
• The Study of Gravitational Microlensing Events
• Eamonn Kerins'  Gravitational microlensing
• Discussion of Gravitational Microlensing and image simulations with Adobe Photoshop
• Florida State University: AST3033 Microlensing by Harrison B. Prosper

Brown Dwarf Pages

• Researchers:
• Mark Marley @ New Mexico State University
• Keith Noll @ STSCI
• Tom Geballe @ The Joint Astronomy Centre in Hawaii; UKIRTNewsletter
• Gibor Basri @ U. C. Berkeley
• Bernadette Rodgers (@ Univ. Washington): Astronomy 511 Project: Survey of Very Cool Dwarf Stars
• Ray Jayawardhana @ Univ. Michigan):"Unraveling Brown Dwarf Origins", Science 303:322-3 (Jan 16 2004).
• Brown Dwarfs (@ U. Oregon)
• Brown Dwarf Discovery (@STSCI)
• A Galaxy Dweller's Guide to Planets, Stars and Dwarfs (@ STSCI)
• GL 229B: An Elusive Brown Dwarf? (@ GSFC)
• What is the difference between a brown dwarf and a white dwarf? (@ Ask the Astronomer)
• Gizis, J. E., "Astronomy: Enhanced: Brown Dwarfs", Science 294(5543):801-802 (26 Oct 2001).
• Cosmiverse Space News, "ISO Discovers the True Nature of Brown Dwarfs" (15 Nov 2001).

Red Dwarf Pages

• To Be Done

White Dwarf Pages

• White Dwarfs Cool (@GSFC)
• Understanding White Dwarf Stars (@ NSERC)
• Using White Dwarf Stars as Ultraviolet Photometric Standards (@ JHU)
• White Dwarf Stars (@ U. Michigan)
• White Dwarfs by Stefan Jordan, with the Late and Final Stages of Stellar Evolution Group (@ Institut für Theoretische Physik und Astrophysik, Universitaet Kiel, Ger).

Neutron Star Pages

• To Be Done

Black Hole Pages

• Known Massive and Stellar Black Holes (@ Ask the Space Scientist)

Neutrino Experiments

• Solar Neutrinos by Paul Langacker (@ U. Penn.)
• Implications of Solar Neutrino Experiments (@ U. Penn.) with list of experiment home pages.
• Astrophysical/Nuclear Physics Explanations (@ U. Penn.)
• Neutrino Mass Data Page (@ U. Helsinki?)
• Neutrino Mass Detection

Interstellar Gas Clouds

• Davé, R., The Lyman Alpha Forest as a Test of Cosmological Models
• Reynolds, R. J., "The Gas between the Stars", Scientific American (Jan 2002).
• Reynolds, R. J., "Ionizing the Galaxy",  Science 277:1446-1447 (5 Sep 1997).
• Molecular H₂:
• Philipp Richter of the University of Wisconsin (publications)
• Wolfgang Gringel, Institut für Astronomie und Astrophysik, University of Tübingen; ORFEUS Project; (publications)

Gravity Wave Detectors

• The Next Generation of Gravity Wave Detectors

Related Pages

Stellar Evolution

• Astronomy Guide: Stellar Evolution
• Univ. of Hawaii Institute for AstronomyAstronomy 110: Stellar Evolution
• WNCC PHYS-1070Stellar Evolution, lecture by Andeas Veh
• Dr. Darkmattter's Stellar Evolution and Evolution of Star Clusters at the University of Oregon
• Old Stars, New Stars by Bob Sheldon

• Hipparcos (High Precision Parallax Collection Satellite)
• Furthur Information on Hipparcos
• Distance and Age Determinations by Hipparcos
• Publication List
• GAIA Home Page
• GAIA (Global Astrometric Interferometer for Astrophysics) (overview at Lund Observatory)
• GAIA (Global Astrometric Interferometer for Astrophysics)
• SDSS Home Page @ FNAL
• Apache Point Observatory: SDSS Telescope
• Sloan Digital Sky Survey Black Book (from NASA): Telescope, Camera, Spectrograph
• Autoscope Information
• Cameras:
• The Photometric Camera
• Imaging Camera Schematic
• SDSS/Spectrographs (@JHU)
• SDSS Stars Working Group (password required)
• What to do with one million redshifts by Chris Stoughton
• Usefullness in Defining the Faint End of the Stellar Luminosity Function and the Stellar/Substellar Break, from Dan Zucker'sSDSS Project pages at the Univ. of Washington.  Also a list of relevant abstracts.
• 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey (UK page)
• "Unveiling A Lack Of Dark Matter", SpaceDaily.com (11 Dec 2001).
• Lahav, O., et al, "The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey: The amplitudes of fluctuations in the 2dFGRS and the CMB, and implications for galaxy biasing" submitted to MNRAS [astro-ph/0112162] (7 Dec 2001)
• Verde, L., et al, "The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey: The bias of galaxies and the density of the Universe" submitted to MNRAS [astro-ph/0112161] (6 Dec 2001).

Globular Cluster Distance & Ages

• SEARCH FOR RED DWARF STARS IN GLOBULAR CLUSTER NGC 6397
• Catalogue of Milky Way Globular Cluster Parameters
• Observational Data for Globular Clusters and The Globular Cluster Database
• Globular Cluster Research by Doug Johnstone
• Globular Cluster Projects by Melvin Blake
• Globular Cluster Group @ Leeds University
• Globular Cluster Intensity Curves
• Proton-Capture Nucleosynthesis in Globular Clusters
• My Globular Cluster Page