How the Nonbaryonic Dark Matter Theory Grew [CEA]
Another arXiver post, this time from the great Jim Peebles. Always a skeptic about dark matter, especially cold dark matter, it is the hallmark of a great scientist that he weighs up the evidence as objectively as possible.
This is a long review, but well worth reading for its important insights and historical perspective. I agree that the case for non-baryonic dark matter is compelling, but it is also far from proved and it’s still possible that an alternative, equally or more compelling, theory will be found.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1701.05837
The evidence is that the mass of the universe is dominated by an exotic nonbaryonic form of matter largely draped around the galaxies. It approximates an initially low pressure gas of particles that interact only with gravity, but we know little more than that. Searches for detection thus must follow many difficult paths to a great discovery, what the universe is made of. The nonbaryonic picture grew out of a convergence of evidence and ideas in the early 1980s. Developments two decades later considerably improved the evidence, and advances since then have made the case for nonbaryonic dark matter compelling.
P. Peebles
Mon, 23 Jan 17
37/55
Comments: An essay to accompany articles on dark matter detection in Nature Astronomy
In the Dark 
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