• A Charles Sturt adjunct lecturer reveals controversial new discovery on dark matter and quantum theory
• Dr Allan Ernest said his theory could ‘change our whole concept of how the universe operates’
• World Space Week runs from Wednesday 4 to Tuesday 10 October

Has a Charles Sturt University academic solved one of the biggest problems plaguing physicists?

This World Space Week, which runs from Wednesday 4 to Tuesday 10 October, Dr Allan Ernest, a retired Senior Lecturer with the School of Dentistry and Medical Sciences and a current Adjunct Lecturer in Wagga Wagga supervising research students is revealing his research findings on dark matter and quantum theory

He has dedicated years to his study of dark matter and understanding its origin using gravitational quantum mechanics, that is, how gravity is described according to quantum mechanics, which traditionally describes the electrical behaviour of electrons in atoms and other interactions of subatomic particles.

Dark matter is believed to comprise about 80 per cent of the universe’s matter but there is strong evidence to suggest that dark matter does not consist of ordinary matter like electrons, protons, and atoms.

“I would guess that almost all physicists would say that the dark matter particle has to be some new particle and that it cannot be an ‘ordinary’ already known particle, because of the strong observational evidence from cosmic background radiation and the origin of the light elements,” Dr Ernest said.

Quantum mechanics, however, shows that a particle can be weakly interacting because of its environment, rather than its internal properties. Traditional atomic quantum theory has previously predicted the existence of these sorts of bound, dark quantum states in atoms, and this weak interaction effect with electrons in atoms is well known.

Dr Ernest said that he realised at the beginning of his research that if quantum theory was applicable to gravity, which has been shown to be true in experiments, then similar dark gravitational quantum states would also exist.

He said that, on small scales, the mathematics shows that these states would be easily destroyed and fragile, just like the atomic electron dark states in atoms.

But on galaxy scales, quantum theory predicts that the states are much more stable and could serve as the dark matter particles everyone is looking for. This means that ordinary matter particles can look like dark matter particles under the right conditions.

“The mathematics is irrefutable but it’s potentially controversial because everyone is so convinced there must be some particle beyond the standard model,” he said.

“I would expect the initial reactions from most physicists to be ’it’s a ridiculous and far-fetched idea’, but it’s easy to be trapped in a preconceived bias when you’ve been conditioned to think in a certain way over a long period of time,” he said.

“If what I am saying does explain the origin of the dark matter particle, and it’s hard to see how it doesn’t, then billions of dollars of research money and thousands of physics careers are in jeopardy, so it’s understandable that as physicists we just don’t want it to be true.”

A galactic halo is a spherical component of galaxy which extends beyond the visible component and is comprised of the stellar halo, galactic corona and dark matter halo.

Dr Ernest can show that many dark states in the gravity well of a halo can be ordinary gas with a quantum composition that makes it look like there is only a fifth, depending on conditions.

Dr Ernest can show that according to gravitational quantum theory, gas particles in a halo can have a quantum composition that can enable the halo to consist almost entirely of ordinary gas but appear as though there is only a fraction of it present, depending on conditions.

He said the presence of these dark states means that the cross sections used to calculate how much gas is present in a halo are wrong.

“Gravitational quantum mechanics shows that the cross sections for how light interacts with halo particles, used for the analysis of light element formation and cosmic background radiation variations, are wrong, and a complete reanalysis is required,” he said.

“Additionally, I now have some observational predictions that could be testable.”

Dr Ernest said these findings have little real-world implications, but they can change our whole concept of how the universe operates, in the same way that General Relativity changed how we view space-time.

“Although we have many environmental problems currently on Earth, which should be our main concern of course, it has always been the desire of humanity to understand the universe and our place in it,” he said.

“Solving the dark matter problem is a big step forward but knowing that quantum theory applies to gravity, and on such large scales, represents a fundamental paradigm shift in our view of the universe.”