Research Proposal for Dark Matter Detection
by Rodney Howe, DSES
Rev. January 2, 2005

Professional astronomers do not have time to do drift scans at 1420.406MHz (with perhaps the exception of Arecibo). It may also be that highly focused beamwidths done by VLA and Arecibo at this frequency cause astronomers to overlook large quantities of HI clouds that inhabit the outer arms of our galaxy. There have been galactic surveys at 1420.406MHz of the HI clouds at narrow beamwidths, but perhaps there needs to be a large beamwidth (0.7 to 1 degree) spectral Doppler survey of the HI clouds.

The spectrometer shows velocities of these clouds in the outer arms to vary considerably with respect to the Local Standard of Rest for our solar system. Spiral arms in the direction of Cygnus are coming toward us (and/or we're going toward them) at velocities in excess of 150km per second.

Clouds at the galactic center move very little either toward or away from us. It is likely that toward the center there is much less HI gas, and more visible matter (stars) but toward the extremities of the Milky Way there is much more HI (dark matter) and fewer visible stars.

If there were 'dark matter' in the outer arms of our Milky Way, it might satisfy professional astronomer's reasoning why stars in the outer arms have not flown off into intergalactic space. It seems the only way the outer arms can be moving as fast as they are, and still remain part of the galaxy, is if there is dark matter (non visible mass) holding everything together.

There are more HI clouds looking toward the outer arms than looking toward the galactic center (spectral line broadening). The hypothesis might be that because we are located in the second/third sprial arm, and given that there are more HI clouds toward the galactic extremities, it may be that the HI clouds represent a form of 'dark matter' in the Milky Way.

One way we might test this hypothesis is to measure the area under the 'spectral curve' as we do drift scans of the inner and outer galactic arms. Data from the center of the galaxy show a narrow peak of unmoving HI clouds. This may represent less dark matter toward the center of the galaxy as well as our general motion neither toward nor away from the center. Whereas data from the outer arms show a relative motion toward us, as well as a broader spectral curve, since we're looking through multiple galactic arms.

http://www.anzwers.org/free/universe/galaxy.html

This Figure (SGR1806-20) shows a steep but narrow curve. There is neither a movement toward nor away from our position of about 2/3 the distance from the galactic center. The combination of a narrow peak and little movement might be an indication of little dark matter.

But as we look out toward the distant arms in the direction of Cygnus and Aurgia many of the HI clouds, in at least 3 galactic arms, are coming toward our Local Standard of Rest (solar system motion). There is also a broadening of the 'spectral curve' because of the large quantity of HI clouds in these multiple arms.

In Figure 2 (CygAur), both the larger area under the curve and the velocity of approaching clouds, might be an indication a larger quantity of HI clouds and perhaps an indication of 'dark matter'. If we find a significant difference in area and velocity we could build an index that might correlate with other data from other surveys such as that of A.J. Romanowsky et.al., (2003, Vol 301, Science) who suggests the only way to determine the motion of elliptical galaxies is to look at the planetary nebulas and their OIII emissions, i.e. SNR nebulas exciting, in the UV, the blown out clouds from progenitor stars. They think they've found a connection with ellipticals that have little or no dark matter. The dark matter, apparently, alters the motions of the elliptical's outer arms. Everything seems to obey standard Newtonian motions and Kepler's laws for these elliptical galaxies. But that seems not to be the case for large spirals like the Milky Way.

This research proposal makes some assumptions about what 'dark matter' is and how we might measure it. Here are a few of those assumptions:

1. Dark matter may be made up of inter-stellar space that is very (to extremely) cold. Perhaps colder than the cosmic microwave background (CMB). The CMB is around 2.69K to 2.73K.
   
   
2. Dark matter may reflect a behavior similar to a superfluid phase, in that it acquires a nonclassical rotational inertia (NCRI).
   
   
3. If Hydrogen (dark matter) in the inter-stellar medium (ISM) changes to a superfluid phase then it might satisfy the Onsager-Feynman relation. (R.P. Feynman, 'Progress in Low Temperature Physics' (North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1955) chap. 2.) Where 2piR*vs = (h/m)*n, vs is the superflow velocity, h is Planck's constant, m is the mass of the Hydrogen [in this case in a column of the gas], and the integer n is the angular momentum of the entire column looking down the galactic arm.
   
   
4. The velocity of the galactic arm is on the same order of magnitude as the critical velocity vc which might be measured as the velocity of the nonclassical rotational inertia (NCRI). There is a temperature dependence of rhoc/rho at different pressures, that is NCRI curves might be measured at the lowest velocities while looking toward the galactic center (rhoc), and compared to the higher velocities toward the galactic extremities, i.e. some kind of index.
   
   
5. This requires us to estimate, to the best we can, the temperature and velocity of the galactic center clouds, versus the temperature and velocity of the outer galactic clouds, as well as their relative motions (velocities). Then compare these velocity/temperature measures with what they should be in a classical rotational interia frame, which would imply higher temperatures.