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hubie [soylentnews.org] writes:

The Italian research center SISSA [sissa.it] has announced a paper proposing a new property, called "non-minimal coupling" [sissa.it] to address the mystery of the nature of dark matter:

In the Universe, dark matter and standard matter “talk” to each other using a secret language. This “discussion” happens thanks to gravity, scientists say, but not in a way they can fully comprehend. A new SISSA study published in “The Astrophysical Journal” sheds light on this long-standing issue.

The authors of the research, Ph.D Student Giovanni Gandolfi and supervisors Andrea Lapi and Stefano Liberati, propose a special property for dark matter called a “non-minimal coupling with gravity”. This new type of interaction can modify dark matter gravitational influence on standard 'baryonic' matter.

[...] To prove the hypothesis, the assumption has been tested and then confirmed with experimental data from thousands of spiral galaxies.

[...] The new study suggests the existence of a new feature of dark matter, named 'non-minimal coupling', which “can be described as a new type of interaction between dark matter and gravity” the authors affirm. “It tells us a lot about the way the two components “communicate”. If the non-minimal coupling is present, standard matter “perceives” spacetime in a way which is different from the one “experienced” by the dark matter.

[...] The new study proposes a solution to one of the most discussed problems in astrophysics, researchers say: “Among other things, the positions of those who argue that dark matter does not exist, and therefore gravity must be modified, are based on the difficulty of finding an explanation to this problem, which is one of the last missing pieces for a global comprehension of dark matter”.

But there is more. “This feature of dark matter is not a piece of new exotic fundamental physics” the author say. “One can explain the existence of this non- minimal coupling with known physics alone”.

Journal Reference:
Giovanni Gandolfi et al Empirical Evidence of Nonminimally Coupled Dark Matter in the Dynamics of Local Spiral Galaxies? [open] 2022 ApJ 929 48
DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/ac5970 [iop.org]

Original Submission