Dark Matters of Principle: Principles in the Dark Matter Paradigm

Abstract

This paper re-examines the Dark Matter (DM) problem through the lens of physical principles. We first develop a functionalist account and taxonomy of principles. We propose to define principles in terms of their intended functions or purposes. Their argumentative force boils down to context-sensitive and often tentative reasons for believing them adequate for those purposes. In research contexts in which novel theories or models are sought which push the boundaries of knowledge into new domains, reliance on well-motivated principles as principal building blocks is a historically widespread, natural, and methodologically prudent research strategy---what we'll dub "principled inquiry". In a second step, we apply this methodological machinery to the DM problem. Through detailed analyses of four mainstream DM approaches---supersymmetric WIMPs, axions, sterile neutrinos, and primordial black holes---we substantiate four claims. (C1) The DM paradigm is formed by the framework of possibilities, circumscribed by a shared cluster of regulative and constitutive principles of gravitational and non-gravitational physics. (C2) Besides those common principles, the four DM models also depart from other principles of orthodox physics in distinct ways. (C3) They do so to different degrees---displaying different forms and extents of "minimal mutilation" with respect to some of the principles of established non-gravitational physics. (C4) The guidelines of principled inquiry clarify the sense in which the DM problem constitutes an ever-more disconcerting crisis: worries are growing that the principles on which DM researchers have routinely and rationally relied may have run out of heuristic steam. Pressure is mounting to "leave no stone unturned" (Bertone and Tait 2018): scientists ought to increasingly explore ideas that stray more radically from the cautious explorations of principled inquiry.