

Dark Matter Is an Illusion, New Antigravity Theory Says

Boiling sea of particles in space may create repulsive gravity.

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The Bullet cluster (above) is considered to be among the best pieces of evidence for dark matter.



At the observed speeds, the outer galaxies should be flung out into space, since the clusters don't appear to have enough mass to keep the galaxies at their edges gravitationally bound.


In the new study, physicist Dragan Hajdukovic at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Switzerland proposes an alternative explanation, based on something he calls the "gravitational polarization of the quantum vacuum."

Empty Space Filled With "Virtual" Particles




When matter and antimatter collide, they annihilate in a flash of energy. The virtual particles spontaneously created in the quantum vacuum appear and then disappear so quickly that they can't be directly observed.


"Mainstream physics assumes that there is only one gravitational charge, while I have assumed that there are two gravitational charges," Hajdukovic said.


That would mean matter and antimatter are gravitationally repulsive, so that an object made of antimatter would "fall up" in the gravitational field of Earth, which is composed of normal matter.


How Galaxies Could Get Gravity Boost


For example, it's long been known that particles can team up to create a so-called electric dipole, with positively charge particles at one end and negatively charged particles at the other. (See "Universe's Existence May Be Explained by New Material.")





If these gravitational dipoles form near a galaxy—a massive object that would have a strong gravitational field—the dipoles should become polarized.

This polarization would generate a secondary gravitational field that would combine with and strengthen the galaxy's gravitational field.

"My theory makes the gravitational field of a galaxy stronger—without dark matter," Hajdukovic said.

Evidence for Dark Matter "Very Compelling"

Physicist David Evans called the new study a "very interesting theoretical exercise," but he said he isn't ready to abandon dark matter just yet.

"The evidence for dark matter is now very compelling," said Evans, of the University of Birmingham, who leads the U.K. team for the ALICE detector at CERN's Large Hadron Collider.



Hajdukovic said he is currently expanding his theory to account for these observations. His preliminary calculations, he said, suggest that "what is observed in the Bullet cluster and more recently at the Pandora cluster may be understood in the framework of the gravitational polarization of the quantum vacuum."

CERN physicist Michael Doser agreed that Hajdukovic's ideas are "unorthodox" but did not immediately dismiss the new theory.

"The mainstream view suffers from the lack of a detected dark matter particle, and so exploring a wide range of possibilities is at this moment perfectly legitimate, as long as they are compatible with all data," Doser said in an email.

Doser is a member of CERN's AEgIS experiment, which aims to measure the gravitational charge of antihydrogen, the antimatter version of hydrogen, and thus would prove whether matter and antimatter are gravitationally repulsive.

"In a few years," Doser said, "we should definitely be in a position to confirm or refute [Hajdukovic's] hypothesis."

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