Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • News & Views
  • Published:

Galaxy clusters

Well of darkness

Nature volume 394, pages 122–123 (1998)Cite this article

Access through your institution
Buy or subscribe

Astronomers have gone to the well and come back perplexed. Galaxy clusters should contain large quantities of dark matter, trapped in their potential well, and we expect that matter to be sharply concentrated near the centre. But using a new method for interpreting the effects of gravitational lensing, Tyson et al.1 have inferred a much smoother and less centrally concentrated distribution of dark matter in one cluster. If this distribution is confirmed, and seen in other clusters, it is likely to produce insights into the mechanisms governing galaxy-cluster formation. A less likely, but more exciting, possibility, is that it is a clue to the very nature of dark matter.

The standard mechanism of large-scale structure formation is gravitational instability2. Small irregularities in density grow with time, collecting matter into an evolving, web-like network. Within this large-scale network, collapsed, nearly spherical, quasi-equilibrium structures called ‘haloes’ form, their internal gravitational attraction balanced by pressure from the random motions of their elements. As the Universe ages, collections of bound haloes merge, and an evolving hierarchy of collapsed structures is established. Clusters of galaxies mark the apex of this process — they are the biggest collapsed structures around.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Access through your institution

Buy this article

  • Purchase on SpringerLink
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Profile of a lens.

G. KOCHANSKI, I. DELL'ANTONIO & T. TYSON/BELL LABS, LUCENT TECHNOLOGIES

References

  1. Tyson, J. A., Kochanski, G. P. & Dell'Antonio, I. P. Astrophys. J. Lett. 498, L107-L110 (1998).

  2. Peebles, J. Principles of Physical Cosmology (Princeton Univ. Press, NJ, 1993).

  3. Navarro, J. F., Frenk, C. S. & White, S. D. M. Astrophys. J. 490, 493–508 (1996).

    Google Scholar 

  4. Moore, B., Governato, F., Quinn, T., Stadel, J. & Lake, G. Astrophys. J. Lett. 499, L5-L10 (1998).

  5. Peebles, J. Astron. J. 75, 13–19 (1970).

    Google Scholar 

  6. Tremaine, S. & Gunn, J. E. Phys. Rev. Lett. 42, 407–419 (1979).

    Google Scholar 

  7. Kofman, L., Klypin, A., Pogosyan, D. & Henry, J. P. Astrophys. J. 470, 102–114 (1996).

    Google Scholar 

  8. http://www-sk.icrr.u-tokyo.ac.jp/doc/sk/index.html

  9. Wilczek, F. Nature 391, 123-124; 394, 13-14 (1998).

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. the Physics Department, University of Michigan, 500 East University, Ann Arbor, 48109-1120, Michigan, USA

    August E. Evrard

Authors
  1. August E. Evrard
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Evrard, A. Well of darkness. Nature 394, 122–123 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1038/28034

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/28034

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing