Does dark matter inhabit the fifth dimension?

Some scientists hypothesize the existence of "strange" fermions capable of crossing portals for a fifth "deformed" dimension of the Universe. A theory to explain, at least in part, dark matter

(photo: gremlin via Getty Images) Dark matter: it is known to exist but not seen. And if the standard model of physics fails to explain it, it seems obvious - at least for theoretical physicists - that there must be something else, a new physics to be discovered.

For Adrian Carmona of the University of Granada ( Spain), Javier Castellano and Matthias Neubert of the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz (Germany), in particular, there are some fermionic subatomic particles capable of traveling through portals in a deformed fifth dimension of the Universe. Precisely these fermions, remaining trapped, would at least partially constitute dark matter.

That of Carmona, Castellano and Neubert, of course, remains a theory, but their study published in European Physical Journal C is considered worthy of note , because he is the first to consistently use Randall-Sundrum's theory of models which introduces a deformed fifth dimension of the Universe - impossible to see (for the moment) but intuitive due to the strangeness it generates on our level of reality.

The three scientists have studied the masses of fermions (ie the subatomic particles alternative to the bosons that make up the known and detectable matter in the Universe) and believe that some types can travel between different dimensions. Those that appear in the hypothetical fifth dimension and remain trapped in it become inaccessible to our current measuring instruments. And we call them dark matter.

Will it ever be possible to prove this theory? Not for the moment, write the authors of the research, but we may not be so far away that we can: to identify the fermionic dark matter in a deformed fifth dimension it would be enough to build the right type of gravitational wave detector.