Pavel Naselsky is quoted as saying "The radiation has a spectrum which has the same form as that of synchrotron emission, which originates from electrons and positrons circulating at high energies around the lines of the Magnetic Field in the center of the galaxy, and I believe that there are quite strong indications that it could come from dark matter." I think he has in the back of his mind the 130GeV spike in the spectrum found by another experiment (but not verified; quite a few groups are looking), because I don't quite see how the Planck results suggest anything like dark matter.
If dark matter could annihilate with other dark matter to produce electrons, you would get a lot of high energy electrons curving in the galactic magnetic field, emitting relatively high energy photons as they go. So they're consistent with one model of dark matter, but that's not exactly evidence.
Something is certainly different about what is going on in the "bubbles", and the paper is worth looking at if only for the pictures of the bubbles above and below the galactic core. I'm afraid my eyes started to glaze over while skimming the discussion of all the different models being compared to the data. That's a vital part of their research, and similar things are critical in my field also, but vital doesn't make it exciting.
FWIW, the primary cosmic ray spectrum looks like 1/E^2.6 at the high end (Auger), so maybe it isn't dark matter but some similar acceleration processes at work. That would get my vote.
In the meantime, we have a shining haze where nobody expected it.
An SF writer named Vernor Vinge has written a series of non-terrific but interesting novels set in a universe that posits different natural laws for different regions near the galaxy. Here in the galactic plane, we're stuck in the "slow zone," with the natural laws we're accustomed to. I forget exactly what the names are for the area "north" of the galactic plan toward the core -- "the Beyond," I think, and then "north" of that is the "Transcend." In the Beyond, you can do things like exceed the speed of light. In the Transcend, it's a bit more like Olympus, populated by what amount to deities with incomprehensible powers.
ReplyDelete