Wolfgang Kapferer - The Mystery of Dark Matter In Search of the Invisible

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Today, the concept of dark matter has undergone an exciting two and a half centuries of history. From initially postulated dark stars to understand the strange movements of some luminaries on the firmament, to hypothetical planets in the outer reaches of our solar system, time and again it was possible to wrest matter from its darkness and, with advancing observation techniques, to discover its true nature.

At the beginning of the twentieth century however, a large gap regarding the masses of large-scale structures in the universe derived by various methods was discovered. The larger the structures, the greater the difference between masses derived from direct observations and masses derived from the dynamics of these objects. The successful conceptdark matterwas and is an approach to resolve this contradiction. It calls for an all-encompassing, purely gravitationally interacting substance in the universe, which is otherwiseat least until nowcompletely invisible. This concept of hidden matter that only reveals itself to us indirectly was and is very successful. A well known example of this is the theory of the formation and development of large-scale structures in the cosmos.

To the layman however, this concept often seems erratic and arbitrary. The aim of this book is, on the one hand, to show the great historical successes of the concept of dark matter in astronomy. The most important key observations in this field of research and their interpretations will be presented. These numerous observations have led to a world view in which our universe is mainly dominated by a form of matter as yet unknown to us. On the other hand, the potential candidates for dark matter are also presented, and the reader is familiarized with the great experiments in this highly topical field of research, the search for them and the most promising results to date.

The search for the nature of dark matter resembles a quest of the grail, transported into the modern age of the natural sciences. The book cover is dedicated to this parable. It shows the artistic visualization of a simulated galaxy rotation curve, which resembles a chalice when it is mirrored and rotated accordingly. In the course of the book, you will learn that galaxy rotation curves are among the central key observations for the phenomenon of dark matter and how laborious the search for a satisfactory answer to the question of the nature of this matter is. I hope you find this search as exciting as I do.

These are all attributes that are difficult to combine with the methods of natural science. It quickly becomes clear that almost all large structures in the universe, such as galaxies, groups of galaxies and clusters of galaxies, predominantly consist of dark matter. And one learns in several treatises that no dark matter has yet been found directly on Earth or by space probes within our solar system. One reads that it must be a form of matter that hardly resembles the matter we are familiar with. It is so weakly interacting that it permeates every material in our world, almost without any sign of interaction with the elements we know. The adverb