What if dark matter—the invisible force sculpting our universe—was once pure light?
A bold new theory suggests that massless, high-energy particles in the early universe collided, cooled, and abruptly transformed into the heavy, slow particles we call dark matter. Not only does the model explain this unlikely metamorphosis, but it also makes predictions testable via the cosmic microwave background.
A Radical Idea on Dark Matter’s Birth
A study by a Dartmouth professor and a senior double-majoring in physics and mathematics proposes a new theory about the origin of dark matter, the mysterious and invisible substance thought to give the universe its shape and structure.
The researchers report in Physical Review Letters that dark matter could have formed in the early life of the universe from the collision of high-energy massless particles that lost their zip and took on an incredible amount of mass immediately after pairing up, according to their mathematical models.
While hypothetical, dark matter is believed to exist based on observed gravitational effects that cannot be explained by visible matter. Scientists estimate that 85% of the universe’s total mass is dark matter.
But the study authors write that their theory is distinct because it can be tested using existing observational data. The extremely low-energy particles they suggest make up dark matter would have a unique signature on the Cosmic Microwave Background, or CMB, the leftover radiation from the Big Bang that fills the universe.
A New Narrative: From Light to Cold Clumps
“Dark matter started its life as near-massless relativistic particles, almost like light,” says Robert Caldwell, a professor of physics and astronomy and the senior author of the paper.
“That’s totally antithetical to what dark matter is thought to be—it is cold lumps that give galaxies their mass,” Caldwell says. “Our theory tries to explain how it went from being light to being lumps.”
“The mathematical model of our theory is really beautiful because it’s rather simplistic—you don’t need to build a lot of things into the system for it to work.”
Guanming Liang ’25, first author of study
Early Universe Chaos: Photon-Like Particles Abound
Hot, fast-moving particles dominated the cosmos after the burst of energy known as the Big Bang that scientists believe triggered the universe’s expansion 13.7 billion years ago. These particles were similar to photons, the massless particles that are the basic component, or quanta, of light.
Caldwell and Guanming Liang ’25, the study’s first author, theorize that it was in this chaos that extremely large numbers of these particles bonded to each other.
They theorize that these massless particles were pulled together by the opposing directions of their spin, like the attraction between the north and south poles of magnets.
As the particles cooled, Caldwell and Liang say, an imbalance in the particles’ spins caused their energy to plummet, like steam rapidly cooling into water. The outcome was the cold, heavy particles that scientists think constitute dark matter.
The Energy Plummet That Changed Everything
“The most unexpected part of our mathematical model was the energy plummet that bridges the high-density energy and the lumpy low energy,” says Liang, who, as a James O. Freedman Presidential Scholar became Caldwell’s advisee during his junior year. Under Caldwell, Liang is conducting his senior thesis research, which expands on the details of the model reported in Physical Review Letters and lays the groundwork for future research.
“At that stage, it’s like these pairs were getting ready to become dark matter,” Caldwell says. “This phase transition helps explain the abundance of dark matter we can detect today. It sprang from the high-density cluster of extremely energetic particles that was the early universe.”
A Trigger Particle Inspired by Superconductors
The study introduces a theoretical particle that would have initiated the transition to dark matter. But scientists already know that the subatomic particles known as electrons can undergo a similar transition, Caldwell and Liang say.
At low temperatures, two electrons can form what are known as Cooper pairs that can conduct electricity without resistance and are the active mechanism in certain superconductors. Caldwell and Liang cite the existence of Cooper pairs as evidence that the massless particles in their theory would have been capable of condensing into dark matter.
“We looked toward superconductivity for clues as to whether a certain interaction could cause energy to drop so suddenly,” Caldwell says. “Cooper pairs prove that the mechanism exists.”
From High-Energy Espresso to Cold Cosmic Oatmeal
The metamorphosis of these particles from the cosmic equivalent of a double espresso into day-old oatmeal explains the vast deficit in the energy density of the current universe compared to its early days, Liang says. Scientists know that density has declined since the Big Bang as the universe’s energy expands outward. But Liang and Caldwell’s theory also accounts for the increase in the density of mass.
“Structures get their mass due to the density of cold dark matter, but there also has to be a mechanism wherein energy density drops to close to what we see today,” Liang says.
“The mathematical model of our theory is really beautiful because it’s rather simplistic—you don’t need to build a lot of things into the system for it to work,” he says. “It builds on concepts and timelines we know exist.”
Looking to the CMB for Proof
Their theory suggests that the particle pairs entered a cold, nearly pressureless state as they got slower and heavier. This characteristic would make them stand out on the CMB. The CMB has been studied by several large-scale observational projects and is the current focus of the Simons Observatory in Chile and other experiments such as CMB Stage 4.
Existing and future data from these projects could be used to test Caldwell and Liang’s theory, the two Dartmouth researchers say.
“It’s exciting,” Caldwell says. “We’re presenting a new approach to thinking about and possibly identifying dark matter.”
Inspiration from a Paper and a Physics Class
The theory originated with a paper from April 2023 that Liang read about the imprint of Cooper pairs on the early universe. He contacted the study authors and asked if they had tested their model under a non-zero temperature scenario. They had not.
At the same time, Liang was in a course on solid-state physics taught by Assistant Professor Rufus Boyack where he had just learned the mathematical tool that would let him take the other researchers’ model to the next step.
“Prof. Caldwell and I plugged in the math to see what it said,” Liang recalls. “It told the whole story. It fleshed out this rich evolutionary history of particles from the high temperatures of the early universe to the lower temperatures today.”
Reference: “Cold Dark Matter Based on an Analogy with Superconductivity” by Guanming Liang (and Robert R. Caldwell, 14 May 2025, Physical Review Letters.
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.134.191004
Never miss a breakthrough: Join the SciTechDaily newsletter.
Follow us on Google and Google News.
6 Comments
I feel I am being vindicated that finally someone with advanced degrees is starting to see the universe as I do , not necessarily simple but simplistic that any creation of matter transforms and doesn’t just vanish . My personal thought of Our life energy doesn’t just vanish , our energy / Soul when the body has exhausted the energy the soul is transformed to a different plane and the body decays , decay does have a imprint and the plane of the soul in life has the imprint of reality then when life exits the body that imprint in the universe never loses the history of being , this we know do to proof of the written word of notable humans that have imprinted what humans think is paramount . With mathematics the advent of using 1s and 0s to form words of information brought us to a communication exchange that we never before thought possible .
P²FITREMANN
NOTE 2505190415_Source1. Analyzing
1.
What if dark matter, the invisible force that carves our universe, was once pure light? Imagine the Big Bang event into a Cooper pair of superconducting phenomena. Uh-huh.
How Fast Particles Freeze Into Darkness: Cosmic Inversion Explains Dark Matter
The researchers argue that dark matter started as a light-speed particle and suddenly gained mass through spin interaction and cooling. This theory, inspired by superconductors, presents a verifiable model that can reveal the traces of dark matter left in the cosmic microwave background. However, it is very difficult and difficult to explain this argument in the existing physical theory, but it is very easy to interpret it with my qpeoms theory. Uh-huh.
_[4-1] The whole universe is huge. Its enormity is expressed in the in.ms logical expression sms.oms.vix.ain. This sample is shown in Example 1. There are the cryogenic main area and the cryogenic absolute value of 0 or less on the side. If we express this origin_msbase.square as side.ms , an empty space void is created in the middle cryogenic main and a background radiation CMB that leaves only the side cryogenic.
This intermodal change leads in theory to the slower and heavier particle chiral pair of oms.vix.ain due to the side density, leading to a cold, almost pressure-free state. This characteristic makes the cryogenic cryogenic mixing in the CMB remarkable. Uh-huh.
Then what is the singularity phenomenon in which the opposite side is concentrated into the main? Is it Big Bang qcell by any chance? qcell is the x-value of the dark energy general higher-order equation. The values of qcell’s 0 and 2 are the values of the dark matter of 2. It is completely different from that of ordinary matter 1. There is an extended gravity (acceleration) that doubles the 1.msbase in the loss state of zero sum by an oscillator. Uh-huh.
Of course, the general relativity principle of near-field chiral line symmetry within the side-high density CMB is applied, and everything in the universe rotates at the speed of light and generates chiral microgravity. Uh-huh.
≈≈≈==========
Source 1.
https://scitechdaily.com/how-speeding-particles-froze-into-darkness-a-cosmic-plot-twist-explains-dark-matter/
1-1.
A new bold theory suggests that the massless high-energy particles of the early universe collided and cooled, suddenly turning into heavy, slow particles that we call dark matter. The model not only explains this incredible transformation process, but also makes it possible to verify the predictions through cosmic microwave background radiation.
1-2.
a radical idea of the birth of dark matter
Research has proposed a new theory of the origin of dark matter, a mysterious and invisible matter that is believed to determine the shape and structure of the universe.
In the paper, it was reported that according to mathematical models, dark matter may have formed when high-energy massless particles collided in the early days of the universe. These particles lost their strength and soon after their bonding, they became massive.
Although hypothetical, dark matter is presumed to exist by observing gravitational effects that cannot be explained by visible light matter. Scientists estimate that 85% of the total mass of the universe is dark matter.
The extremely low-energy particles they estimate to make up dark matter will exhibit unique features in the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB), the residual radiation of the Big Bang filling the universe.
2.New narrative: from light to cold lumps
Dark matter was born in the form of a relativistic particle with almost no mass, almost like light. It is completely contrary to what dark matter thought. It is a cold mass that gives mass to a galaxy. The theory tries to explain how dark matter changed from light to a mass.
The mathematical model of the theory is really beautiful because it is so simple. There is no need to build much into the system to work.
2-1.
Early Cosmic Chaos: Rich Photon-like Particles
Hot and fast-moving particles dominated the universe after the energy explosion known as the Big Bang, which scientists believe triggered the expansion of the universe 13.7 billion years ago. These particles were similar to photons, which are massless particles, which are the basic components of light. It was in this chaos that a huge number of particles joined together.
2-2.
They theorized that these massless particles are pulled together by opposite rotation directions, like the attraction between the north and south poles of a magnet.
As the particles cooled, the energy decreased sharply due to the spin imbalance. It’s like steam cooling down quickly with water. The result is a cold, heavy particle that scientists assume constitutes dark matter.
2-3. Energy crash that changed everything
The most unexpected part of our mathematical model was the energy plunge, which connects high-density energy with bumpy low energy.
At that stage, it seems that these pairs were getting ready to become dark matter. This phase transition helps to explain the rich dark matter we can detect today. This resulted from a dense cluster of extremely high-energy particles that were in the early universe.
2-4.
Superconductor-inspired trigger particles
This study presents theoretical particles that would have initiated the transition to dark matter. However, scientists already know that subatomic particles known as electrons can undergo similar transitions.
At low temperatures, two electrons can form structures known as Cooper pairs, which can conduct electricity without resistance and are active mechanisms for certain superconductors. We present the existence of Cooper pairs as evidence in their theory that massless particles could have condensed into dark matter.
Who are you? Just interested as found your piece short but informative.
im seeing it lnow like inflation slowing to below the speed of light, then when fhe expansion slowed to the exact speed of light and mass united with photons it is like the sonic boom oummmmmm^ not boom but oummm bang sacred geometry . now gamma rays have stretched to microwaves it will end when em radiation flatlines but then the expansion exceeds the speed of light it. happens again inflation time boummmm bang after inflation time boummm bang. dark energy is a hugh part and dark matter spin supper conducting levitating like the notes i just read. acoustics levatates frogs due to frogs like us bags of water through sound
One might wonder not only why the Big Bang occurred but why it Banged when it did at a time which was precisely the time before when H sap could have learnt enough to invent mathematics and build the computers to do the modelling…
No doubt our priests and churches have an answer, but I can’t believe them either.