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Volume 13: Pages 604-612, 2000

Dark Matter and the Origin of Mass: A Simplified Semiclassical Approach

C. L. Herzenberg

Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois 60439 U.S.A.

The pervasive presence in space of a flux of high‐speed, electrically uncharged dark matter particles is examined here for potential consequences. Dark matter interactions with ordinary matter are considered, and a model of the dark matter flux is developed. In this model, the property of matter that we designate as mass is a measure of the interaction cross section of ordinary matter with the flux of dark matter. From this model emerge effects similar to certain quantum phenomena, and also a flux‐mediated attractive inverse square force between particles of ordinary matter. The occurrence of effects resembling both quantum and gravitational phenomena in this model may enable a straightforward examination of the convergence of gravitational physics and quantum mechanics.

Keywords: dark matter, dark energy, mass, gravitation, quantum mechanics, Planck length, space‐time, physical vacuum, quantum fluctuations

Received: June 8, 2000; Published online: December 15, 2008