RE: Heating up neutron stars with dark matter
I love the word 'muon'. I spent a few minutes looking up its origin and ran into antimuon. Then I read in wikipedia
Like all elementary particles, the muon has a corresponding antiparticle of opposite charge.
And in your piece I read:
In very few words, two different neutrons cannot occupy the same state. As nature always aims to minimise the total energy of a given system
And then you state:
Moreover, in order for cosmological simulations to correctly reproduce the formation of the galaxies, dark matter is highly needed
The unifying theme in these statements, and in your search for proof of dark matter, seems to be this: The order of nature, as the state of physics understands its laws, determines the parameters of your search. Right now, dark matter is theoretical. But muons are concrete. The concrete muons may provide a path to dark matter and therefore finally prove its existence. The thing that I respect is that no one is making a leap without proof, without a concrete path.
Thanks for giving us a glimpse into the mysteries of the universe. Must be exciting to be on this frontier.
You did it right. It is totally true muons exist (they may even be responsible... for life, through cosmic rays). On the other hand, we highly need dark matter to explain all cosmological observations (however, alternatives exist), but dark matter still evade detection (the alternatives have drawbacks, potentially more severe, too). Therefore, the idea here is to combine both: dark matter that only interacts with muons, which can consequently explain why it is not been observed yet.
🙂
I upvoted my own comment (above)--need a GPS to navigate the platform :))
You seem to really like yourself then :D
😅