A trio of astrophysicists, two from Carnegie Mellon College and the third from Bahamas Superior Examine Institute and Conferences, is proposing a brand new idea to clarify the distinctive lensing seen with Abell 3827—a galaxy cluster roughly 1.3 billion light-years away. Of their paper revealed in Month-to-month Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Joyce Lin, Richard Griffiths and Jenny Wagner, describe their new idea and clarify the way it may assist higher perceive the character of dark matter.
Abell 3827 is a designation for a cluster of a whole lot of galaxies, as considered from Earth—simply 4 of the galaxies are clearly outstanding. Located roughly 1.3 billion light-years away, the cluster has represented a chance for astrophysicists to review dark matter as a result of its distinctive lensing properties.
Prior analysis has urged that the seen a part of the cluster makes up simply 10% of its mass—the remaining is believed to be dark matter. Prior analysis has additionally discovered that due to the character and association of the galaxies within the cluster, it serves as an unusually massive gravitational lens. Such lensing has resulted within the formation of what appears like a glowing blue ring across the edges of the cluster.
Abell 3827 was found simply two years in the past by a crew finding out information from the Hubble Area Telescope. Since that point, astronomers have been debating the variety of photographs that may be seen when it—estimates vary from 4 to eight. The issue in pinning down the precise quantity is due, it’s believed, to gravitational distortion of the sunshine emitted by the celebrities that make up the galaxies, by unseen dark matter.
It has additionally been famous that a few of the distortion is probably going associated to rotation, which some have claimed is an instance of self-interacting darkish matter. On this new effort, the analysis trio is proposing that a few of the traits of Abell 3827 are as a result of morphology of the lensing.
They counsel that the lensing seen with the cluster is because of its three-dimensional traits—a serious departure from prior theories which describe lensing as skinny and flat. Of their idea, Abell 3827’s lensing is formed extra like a waffle, with completely different components having completely different quantities of thickness—a attribute that would clarify why the cluster seems to look stretched extra in some components than others.
Notably, for his or her idea to carry water, the galaxies making up the cluster should not all be the identical distance from Earth—the analysis crew believes that three of the main 4 galaxies are all practically the identical distance whereas the fourth is probably tens of hundreds of thousands of light-years nearer.
Extra info:
Joyce Lin et al, A lot ado about no offset—characterizing the anomalous multiple-image configuration and the model-driven displacement between mild and mass within the multiplane sturdy lens Abell 3827, Month-to-month Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (2023). DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stad2800 . On arXiv: doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2306.11779
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A brand new idea to clarify Abell 3827’s hazy and askew gravitationally lensed galaxies (2023, October 12)
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