# Does the term “dark matter” apply to nonluminescent bodies which still interact electromagnetically?

On the new Astronomy.SE site, I was having a short discussion on one of my answers. The basic discrepancy was; can MACHOs like black holes/brown dwarfs/neutron stars be termed "dark matter"?

My reasoning is that these objects do not radiate EM radiation on their own but they do gravitate, and thus constitute a small part of the total dark matter in the universe. I agree that there is a lot of dark matter which doesn't

In other words, can the term "dark matter" be applied to nonradiating (or faintly radiating) bodies which still participate in the electromagnetic interaction (baryonic or otherwise)? Or is it necessary for all dark matter to not interact electromagnetically?

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Now that's a good question. The MACHOs certainly make up part of the "missing matter" needed to explain the galactic rotations curves (albeit a minority part), but these days "dark matter" seems to be reserved for exotic stuff that does not participate in the electromagnetic interaction. Only I've never seen an authoritative definition. For that matter, who would constitute an authority at this point? –  dmckee Sep 28 '13 at 14:55
For an authoritative definition about its influence on the evolution of the universe, see almost any modern cosmology textbook. My favorites are Scott Dodelson's Modern Cosmology, or John A. Peacock's Cosmological Physics. –  astromax Sep 28 '13 at 15:22

I know we've had this discussion on the Astronomy SE site, but let me try to elaborate on my answer.

Dark matter is an altogether different component of the universe from baryonic matter. It does cause the same overall dynamics when it comes to the universe as a whole. What I mean by this is that the hubble parameter:

$$H(a) = H_0 \sqrt{\frac{\Omega_{m}}{a^{3}} + \frac{\Omega_{\gamma}}{a^{4}} + \Omega_{\Lambda} }$$

remains the same. Consequently, the age of the universe, the lookback time to objects in the universe, the distance to things like the cosmological horizon, the CMB, ..., these things all remain the same, since:

$$\Omega_{m} = \Omega_{b} + \Omega_{cdm}$$

BUT, you may be asking yourself then: What does change if you change the ratio of dark matter to baryonic matter? The answer is that statistically, structure would look different. The power spectrum of the universe would look considerably different. Below is a picture of the power spectrum as measured by the Planck satellite (red are from observations, and green is the prediction from the LCDM cosmological model) - pretty nice fit, right?

What actually changes in this picture (if you were to, by hand, adjust the ratio of dark matter to total matter) are the relative heights of the peaks in the power spectrum. This is because the "Cold" in Cold Dark Matter arises from the fact that dark matter doesn't interact electromagnetically, and so in the early universe, it cooled off more rapidly than baryonic matter did, forming overdensities in the early universe which baryonic matter would later fall into and form the structures we see today. If dark matter were really composed of things like neutron stars and brown dwarves (like you say both here and on the Astronomy SE), which absolutely are composed of material which can be broken down into quarks, then you would be forced to conclude that the early universe had no such dark matter component. This would give you a totally different power spectrum, and would be absolutely inconsistent with the power spectrum we've measured observationally.

The alternative, is that our theories are wrong, and that there is no such component to the universe which behaves the same as regular matter gravitationally, but that doesn't interact electromagnetically. This is absolutely one possibility. Another possibility, is that dark matter is actually composed of particles which we do know to exist, but that do have mass, and additionally must be neutral (neutral particles do not interact via the electromagnetic force) - this is why various types of neutrinos (or simply neutrinos themselves if they happen to have the right masses) have been proposed as a possible dark matter particle candidate.

Things like neutron stars, brown and white dwarves, are all the end products of main sequence stars, which are composed of various gasses, which are of course, atoms. No matter how faint they actually are, they are characteristically different from what we think dark matter is. By the way, your statement that they do not emit EM radiation on their own is simply incorrect. They do emit photons. Pulsars are rapidly rotating, highly magnetized, neutron stars, and brown and white dwarves are very faint because they have moved off of the main sequence in the H-R diagram, and thus are not fusing elements at the same rate as they once were.

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I think, again, we're coming to the same issue here. I'm not saying that DM is baryonic. The arguments you provide refute that statement; which is not one that I'm making. I'm wondering if it is OK to say that MACHOs make up a part of the DM in the universe. (see also: dmckee's comment ). However, it seems that the meaning of the term has changed over the years to exclude MACHOs. –  Manishearth Sep 28 '13 at 16:01
Apologies for the EM radiation statement, I meant "faint". Do you have any references giving a definition for DM that excludes MACHOs? (I see the books in the above comment, a quote would be nice) Thanks :) –  Manishearth Sep 28 '13 at 16:02
To clarify: This is a terminology question. Physical arguments don't really make sense in this context because they fundamentally rely on the terminology being used, which is what I'm questioning. –  Manishearth Sep 28 '13 at 16:04
I'll get back with some quotes from the books I've linked. I'm not in my office at the moment :) –  astromax Sep 28 '13 at 16:17