No dark matter and dark energy needed?

[Eise]

At least not according André Maeder, University of Geneva:

Quote

The consensus at present is that of a Big Bang followed by expansion. "In this model, there is a starting hypothesis that hasn't been taken into account, in my opinion," says André Maeder, honorary professor in the Department of Astronomy in UNIGE's Faculty of Science. "By that, I mean the scale invariance of empty space; in other words, empty space and its properties do not change following a dilatation or contraction."

(...)

When Maeder carried out cosmological tests on his new model, he found that it matched observations. He also found that the model predicts the accelerated expansion of the universe without having to factor in dark energy. In short, it appears that dark energy may not actually exist since the acceleration of the expansion is contained in the equations of the physics.

In a second stage, Maeder focused on Newton's law, a specific instance of the equations of general relativity. The law is also slightly modified when the model incorporates Maeder's new hypothesis. Indeed, it contains a very small outward acceleration term, which is particularly significant at low densities. This amended law, when applied to clusters of galaxies, leads to masses of clusters in line with that of visible matter (contrary to what Zwicky argued in 1933). This means that no dark matter is needed to explain the high speeds of the galaxies in the clusters.
 

Interesting. Let's wait and see.

 

 

[swansont]

Sean Carroll has commented that we need to see if it replicates the CMB anisotropies. The stumbling block of other alternate models is they replicate one behavior of dark matter, but not others.

[LaurieAG]

The paper is interesting.

https://arxiv.org/abs/1710.11425

[J.C.MacSwell]

It assumes the "scale invariance of empty space".  What is the current model based on? Have there been some effects assumed to be present due to the expansion? What are they with respect to empty space? Or am I misinterpreting?

[Strange]

A bit of commentary on this: https://gizmodo.com/dark-matter-is-not-dead-1820809277/amp

[Eise]

On 29/11/2017 at 1:58 PM, Strange said:

A bit of commentary on this: https://gizmodo.com/dark-matter-is-not-dead-1820809277/amp

That is a pretty devastating critique. I looked up Maeder's background before I posted this, he seemed a kind of authority. So I didn't have to wait very long...

Thanks for the link.

[Strange]

Another blog post about this paper: http://backreaction.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/astrophysicist-discovers-yet-another.html

Maeder himself posts some comments below the article.

[Eise]

Thanks, Strange. Maeder does not give up.... I also saw (negative) comments of John Baez. 

Now I'll wait till we have found what DM really exists of. WIMPS, brown dwarfs, planets without stars, (primordial) black holes ....

[Bill Angel]

Interesting article for the non specialist reader:

 "Study finds 'dark matter' and 'dark energy' may not exist – here's what to make of it" — http://theconversation.com/study-finds-dark-matter-and-dark-energy-may-not-exist-heres-what-to-make-of-it-88181

What is worth mentioning is that the authors' theory and its confirmation by astronomical observations only deals with the rotational motion of galaxies, but makes no mention of the observations of "gravitational lensing" which result in the light from distant galaxies being bent when it passes near galaxies that are closer to the Earth. "Gravitational lensing" would seem to be the more direct evidence for the existence of dark matter.

 

 

[Mordred]

you might want to read this

http://backreaction.blogspot.ca/2017/11/astrophysicist-discovers-yet-another.html

In essence their is numerous errors in his paper

[swansont]

!

Moderator Note

Similar threads merged

 

[interested]

I think this should go here Mathematicians claim dark matter and an accelerating universe is to be expected from einsteins original equations. 

Doing without dark energy: Mathematicians propose alternative explanation for cosmic acceleration

https://phys.org/news/2017-12-dark-energy-mathematicians-alternative-explanation.html?utm_source=nwletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily-nwletter