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I just read that maybe the dark matter could have dark forces.

Hence, I wonder: dark atoms, dark galaxies, dark intelligent beings. Basically a parallel, interpenetrating universe. Is this plausible?

Qmechanic
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Robert Blandford
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  • No, I'm proposing that it has all the forces of regular matter and they interact with dark matter, but that they do not interact with regular matter - except for gravity of course. – Robert Blandford Jun 25 '15 at 17:15
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    Maybe Worldbuilding SE is a better place for your question? – Bosoneando Jun 25 '15 at 17:22
  • @Bosoneando, I think the question as it is worded would be better off here. The question asks if, from a physics standpoint, if such a thing is plausible, not what a "dark parallel universe" would look like. – NeutronStar Jun 25 '15 at 17:23
  • Looks like I'm talking about "mirror matter" that I found in Wikipedia. I'm suggesting that there could be a mirror matter that interacts with regular matter only looks like I'm talking about "mirror matter" that I found in Wikipedia. I'm suggesting that there could be a mirror matter that inter-acts only via gravity. Could it be detected, even resolved in some detail, by gravitational lensing? – Robert Blandford Jun 25 '15 at 17:26
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    @Joshua I think that asking about dark matter selfinteractions is fine here, but going beyond and asking about even dark civilizations... well, it seems a little in the realm of fantasy for me. – Bosoneando Jun 25 '15 at 17:28
  • I concur, asking about dark intelligent beings appears more scifi than fact. Querying about dark atoms/stars/planets/galaxies etc should be okay, but might be a duplicate of a question asked previously. – Kyle Kanos Jun 25 '15 at 17:33
  • Well it is a bit of fantasy, but it would interject a bit of symmetry. – Robert Blandford Jun 25 '15 at 17:35
  • @Kyle Kanos could you cite the question asked previously? – Robert Blandford Jun 25 '15 at 17:37
  • @RobertBlandford: This question asks specifically if star-sized clumps of dark matter could exist. Inference to larger objects from these answers (as well as John's here) is straight-forward. – Kyle Kanos Jun 25 '15 at 17:50
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    possible duplicate of can we have a parallel earth made of dark matter? – John Rennie Jun 25 '15 at 17:55
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    Hi Robert. While chasing down Kyle's suggestion that related questions may exist i've come across a virtually exact duplicate. And indeed Chris White's answer to that question is virtually the same as my answer to this one. – John Rennie Jun 25 '15 at 17:57
  • @Kyle Kanos A "clump" of matter could be assembled using gravity only. It would be inert without other forces. So it would not be a dark "star" or dark "earth". – Robert Blandford Jun 25 '15 at 18:01
  • this is definitely not a duplicate, since in this question there is the possibility of 'dark dyson swarms' made of hadronic matter, but that are way colder than what one would expect from the usual heat waste analysis. Such 'dark objects' have been ruled out to make up all of dark matter, but they could still make up a non-negligible fraction of it – lurscher Jun 25 '15 at 18:26

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Assuming you take the usual position that dark matter interacts only via the weak and gravitational forces, then it doesn't just interact weakly with baryonic matter but it also interacts weakly with other dark matter. That makes it extremely unlikely that dark matter will form the sort of complex structures that make up you and I. I'm afraid it seems very unlikely that dark matter will form anything more structured than a fuzzy blob.

There have been suggestions for types of dark matter that does interact strongly with itself, but not with baryonic matter. For example mirror matter. However such suggestions are entirely speculative without a shred of experimental evidence to back them up.

John Rennie
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