Dark matter and dark energy are one of the intriguing problems which keep awake theoretical physicists.
See
this picture for a schematic of the accelerated expansion of the universe due to dark energy.
There are many attempts to demystify the truth behind these concepts. For first account on these topics, click following links from Wikipedia. I try to give a clear picture in the coming days.
1.
Dark Matter
2.
Dark Energy
There are attempts to unify these two concepts. For example, a recent arXiv pre-print titled "
Unified description of dark energy and dark matter in mimetic matter model" by Jiro Matsumoto from Institute of Physics, Kazan Federal University, Russia attempts in this direction.
The abstract reads as follows:
"The existence of dark matter and dark energy in cosmology is implied by various observations,
however, they are still unclear because they have not been directly detected. In this Letter, an
unified model of dark energy and dark matter that can explain the evolution history of the Universe
later than inflationary era, the time evolution of the growth rate function of the matter density
contrast, the flat rotation curves of the spiral galaxies, and the gravitational experiments in the
solar system is proposed in mimetic matter model."
While discussing dark matter and dark energy, we may need to consider the cosmic mirowave backround radiation (CMB radiation). In general, the
CMB radiation picture is shown with a lot of variations. But, it is a difference with the actual image. The real image is completely red. What is shown in the Figure is just the variation (less than 4 K ?).
If dark matter is a boson, its masss in lower limit is 10>-22 eV.
If it is Fermion, its Fermion, is lower limit is a few eVs.
The upper limit for the mass is 10^3 solar masses (huge!!!!).
Types of Dark Matter:
Bananas Dark Matter:
(This page will be updated gradually...)