Modified Dark Matter: Relating Dark Energy, Dark Matter and Baryonic Matter

TL;DR

Modified dark matter (MDM) links dark energy, dark matter, and baryonic matter through a critical acceleration related to the cosmological constant, successfully fitting galaxy and cluster data and offering new insights into dark matter phenomenology.

Contribution

This paper introduces MDM as a phenomenological model connecting dark energy and dark matter via a critical acceleration, aligning with observational data across multiple scales.

Findings

MDM mass profiles fit galaxy rotation curves and cluster data.

A critical acceleration related to the cosmological constant emerges in MDM.

MDM may operate on cosmological scales despite limited quantitative studies.

Abstract

Modified dark matter (MDM) is a phenomenological model of dark matter, inspired by gravitational thermodynamics. For an accelerating Universe with positive cosmological constant ($\Lambda$), such phenomenological considerations lead to the emergence of a critical acceleration parameter related to $\Lambda$. Such a critical acceleration is an effective phenomenological manifestation of MDM, and it is found in correlations between dark matter and baryonic matter in galaxy rotation curves. The resulting MDM mass profiles, which are sensitive to $\Lambda$, are consistent with observational data at both the galactic and cluster scales. In particular, the same critical acceleration appears both in the galactic and cluster data fits based on MDM. Furthermore, using some robust qualitative arguments, MDM appears to work well on cosmological scales, even though quantitative studies are still lacking. Finally, we comment on certain non-local aspects of the quanta of modified dark matter, which may lead to novel non-particle phenomenology and which may explain why, so far, dark matter detection experiments have failed to detect dark matter particles.