Dark Sky, Dark Matter

The Series in Astronomy and Astrophysics includes books on all aspects of theoretical and experimental astronomy and astrophysics. Books in the series range in level from textbooks and handbooks to more advanced expositions of current research.

Olbers' paradox states that in an unbounded Universe governed by The standard laws of physics and populated by light sources of constant luminosity, the night sky should be ablaze with light. Obviously this is not so. However, the paradox does not lie in nature but in our understanding of physics. A Universe with a finite age. such as follows from big bang theory, necessarily has galaxies of (mile age. I Ins means we can only see some of the galaxies in the Universe,which is the main reason why the night sky is dark. Just how dark can be calculated using the astrophysics of galaxies and stars, and the dynamics of relativistic cosmology.

We know from the dynamics of individual galaxies and clusters of galaxies that the majority of the matter which exerts gravitational forces is not detectable by conventional telescopes. This dark matter could have many forms, and candidates include various types of elementary particles as well as vacuum fluctuations, black holes and others. Most of these candidates are unstable to decay and produce photons. So dark matter does not only affect the dynamics of the Universe, but the intensity of intergalactic radiation as well. Conversely, we can use observations of background radiation to constrain the nature and density of dark matter. Thus does Gibers' problem gain new importance.

Drawing on the latest observational data as well as current theoretical ideas in cosmology, general relativity and particle physics, this book reviews the astrophysics of the night sky and the nature of the dark matter that makes up most of the Universe.

Contents

• The dark night sky
• The modern resolution and energy
• The modern resolution and spectra
• The dark matter
• The vacuum
• Axions
• Neutrinos
• Supersymmetric weakly interacting particles
• Black holes

• Bolometric intensity integrals
• Dynamics with a decaying vacuum
• Absorption by galactic hydrogen