Stellar-Mass Dark Matter

Martin Hardcastle wrote:

The interesting thing here, though, is that we know that the bulk of
the *baryonic* matter in the cluster is in the X-ray emitting gas --
which is left behind. That makes it rather hard to come up with a
model in which we've just got gravity wrong, since, if that were the
case, the weak lensing would tell us that the mass was where the
X-rays are, instead of where the galaxies are. It's a consistency
check for the sort of dark matter that people believe in, of a sort
that isn't usually possible.

Martin
--
Martin Hardcastle
School of Physics, Astronomy and Mathematics, University of Hertfordshire, UK
Please replace the xxx.xxx.xxx in the header with herts.ac.uk to mail me



So the NASA/HST results regarding the "Bullet Cluster" are considered
compelling evidence for the reality of large amounts of dark matter
governing masses and dynamics on the galactic scale. So far I have not
seen discussions of how the Bullet Cluster results influence the
stellar-mass vs particle-mass controversy over the nature of the dark
matter.

Microlensing results gathered over the last decade strongly support the
stellar-mass dark matter hypothesis. So far the results are consistent
with mass peaks at 0.15 solar masses and 0.5 solar masses. These
specific peaks were formally predicted in ApJ, out of a possible mass
range extending over 70 orders of magnitiude! These objects cannot be
known stellar populations, but rather have to be something new. My
research suggests that the dark matter is largely composed of
Kerr-Newman black holes with masses that are discrete multiples of 0.15
solar masses. Details can be found at www.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw .

Over the same time period, particle-mass searches have apparently not
been fruitful.

Are we ready to confront these issues objectively, putting aside
theoretical biases, delay tactics and obfuscation? I think we may be
getting close.