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Physical Society Colloquium
Probing Dark Matter with Cosmic Flows Dr. Michael J. Hudson University of Victoria Peculiar velocities are the deviations from the uniform expansion of the Universe. They are the only way to probe the large-scale distribution of dark matter in the nearby Universe. I will briefly review previous observational results in this field, and then present new results from our recently-completed survey of the peculiar velocities of galaxy clusters. I will focus on the main result from this survey, namely the mean bulk motion of the sample with respect to the distant reference frame defined by the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation. I will then discuss the impact that our surprising result has for our understanding of the nature and distribution of dark matter.
Friday, January 22nd 1999, 15:30 |