Superfluid Universe

Instead of solving the mystery, the direct-detection experiments have only deepened it
With steadily improving telescope technology, the observational support for dark matter has
accumulated and become more precise. Physicists are now able to perceive the subtle
distortions caused by the gravitational warping of space-time near galaxy clusters. This
distortion, known as weak gravitational lensing, slightly deforms the images of more distant
stellar objects; their light bends around the cluster, whose gravity acts as a lens. From the
strength of this effect, the cluster’s total mass can be calculated, demonstrating the presence
of dark matter. By this method, physicists have even generated maps of the distribution of
dark matter. Combining this with other lines of evidence, they have deduced that 85 per cent
of the matter in the Universe must be dark.
With more data, physicists could also exclude the idea that dark matter consists of unseen
clumps of ordinary atoms, like the ones Earth is made of (technically known as baryonic
matter). This normal matter interacts too strongly with itself; it would not produce the
observed distribution of dark matter. Dark matter also cannot be made of stars that collapsed
to black holes or other very dim stellar objects. If that were so, these objects would have to
vastly outnumber the stars in our galaxy and cause intense gravitational distortions that
could be readily observed. Nor can dark matter be made of other known particles, such as
the weakly interacting neutrinos that are emitted abundantly by stars. Neutrinos would not
clump enough to create the observed galactic structures.Therefore, to explain what makes
up dark matter, physicists instead had to theorise about new, so far undetected, particles.
The most widely used ones fall into two broad classes: weakly interacting massive particles
(WIMPs) and much lighter axions, though there is no shortage of more complex hypotheses
that combine various types of particles. But all attempts to detect any of these particles
directly, rather than inferring their presence from their gravitational pull, have so far been
unsuccessful. Instead of solving the mystery, the direct-detection experiments have only
deepened it.
‘It is impossible to be interested in cosmology today without being interested in dark matter,’
says Stefano Liberati, a physics professor at the International School for Advanced Studies
(SISSA) in Italy. Liberati and his collaborators have independently worked out an explanation
for dark matter very similar to Khoury’s. When Liberati first learned how successful
modifications of gravity are on galactic scales where cold dark matter models fall short, he
immediately tried to think of ways to combine the two. ‘It made me think: maybe dark matter
at small scales makes a type of phase transition,’ he says. ‘Maybe it transforms into a type of
fluid, in particular a superfluid. If it forms a condensate at the scale of galaxies, this really
solves a lot of problems.’
Superfluids do not exist in daily human experience, but they are well-known to physicists.
They are analogous to superconductors, a class of materials that moves electricity without
resistance. When cooled to temperatures near absolute zero, helium likewise starts flowing
without resistance. It will creep through the tiniest pores, and even slide out of trays by
moving up walls. Such ‘superfluid’ behaviour isn’t specific to helium; it is a phase of matter
that, at low enough temperatures, can be reached by other particles too. First predicted in
1924 by Einstein and the Indian physicist Satyendra Bose, this whole class of ultra-cold
superfluids is now known as Bose-Einstein condensates. Liberati realised that dark matter
might have a superfluid state as well.
Bose-Einstein condensates are best understood as a mixture of two components: one that is
superfluid and one that isn’t. The two components behave very differently. The superfluid
one exhibits long-range quantum effects, no viscosity, and unexpected correlations over
large distance scales; it is as if it was made of much larger particles than its actual tiny
constituents. The other normal component behaves like the fluids we are used to; it sticks to
containers and to itself – it has a viscosity. The ratio between the two components depends
on the condensate’s temperature: the higher the temperature, the more dominant the normal
component.
We are used to thinking that quantum physics dominates only the microscopic realm. But the
more physicists have learned about quantum theory, the more it has become clear that this
isn’t so. Bose-Einstein condensates are one of the best-studied substances that allow
quantum effects to spread widely through a medium. In theory, quantum behaviour can span
arbitrarily large distances, provided it isn’t disturbed too much.
In a warm and noisy environment such as Earth, fragile quantum effects are quickly
destroyed. That is why we don’t normally observe the stranger aspects of quantum physics,
such as the ability of particles to behave like waves. But initiate quantum behaviour in a cool,
quiet place and it will last. A cool, quiet place like, for example, outer space. There, quantum
effects might stretch across vast distances.

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Instead of solving the mystery, the direct-detection experiments have only deepened it

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