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Using DESI data, scientists are investigating a groundbreaking theory that links black holes to the accelerating expansion of the universe. The theory suggests that dark energy, which makes
Using DESI data, scientists are investigating a groundbreaking theory that links black holes to the accelerating expansion of the universe. The theory suggests that dark energy, which makes up about 70% of the universe and fuels its expansion, may come from processes occurring in black holes, similar to the reverse of the Big Bang.
About 14 billion years ago, at the beginning of the Big Bang, a mysterious energy caused an exponential expansion that created all known matter. This event, described by the inflationary universe theory, laid the foundation for the cosmos as we know it.
This ancient energy shares some basic characteristics with the dark energy present in the modern universe; a deep mystery. Dark energy makes up about 70% of the universe, but its nature remains elusive for scientists.
“If you ask yourself, ‘Where in the later universe do we see gravity as strong as in the early universe?’ The answer lies at the centers of black holes,” said Gregory Tarle, a professor of physics at the University of Michigan and co-author of the study. “It’s possible that what happens during inflation happens in reverse, like a mini Big Bang played in reverse, with a massive star collapsing back into dark energy during gravitational collapse.”
In a recently published study Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics Tarle and collaborators from five institutions presented new evidence supporting this idea, collected using Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) data. DESI, comprised of 5,000 robotic eyes on the Mayall Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory on the Tohono O’odham Nation, is providing new insights into the connection between black holes and dark energy.
“If black holes contain dark energy, they could merge with and grow with the expanding universe, causing it to grow faster,” said Kevin Crocker, lead author of the team’s new study and an assistant research scientist at Arizona State University. “We can’t get the details of how this happened, but we can see evidence that it happened.”
Data from the first year of DESI’s planned five-year survey shows promising evidence that the density of dark energy is increasing over time. According to the researchers, this provides a strong clue supporting this idea of what dark energy is because this increase over time is consistent with how the number and mass of black holes increases over time.
“When I first joined the project, I was very skeptical,” said co-author Steve Allen, professor emeritus of physics at Boston University. “But I kept an open mind throughout the process, and when we started doing cosmological calculations I said: ‘This is a really good mechanism for generating dark energy.’
To find evidence of dark energy from black holes, the team used tens of millions of distant galaxies measured by DESI. The device looks back billions of years and collects data that can be used to determine with extreme precision how fast the universe is expanding. This data can be used to understand how the amount of dark energy changes over time.
The team compared this data to the number of black holes formed due to the death of massive stars throughout the history of the universe.
“These two events were consistent with each other; as new black holes formed with the death of massive stars, the amount of dark energy in the universe increased accordingly,” said University of Physics Professor Duncan Farrah. He is from Hawaii and co-authored the study. “This makes it more convincing that black holes are the source of dark energy.”
This work adds to the growing literature investigating the possibility of cosmological coupling in black holes. A 2023 study in which most of the authors of this article participated reported a cosmological connection in supermassive black holes in galactic centers. This 2023 report prompted other teams to look for the impact of black holes in all the different places they might be found in the universe.
“These papers explore the relationship between dark energy and black holes through growth rates. Our new paper attributes black holes to dark energy before they are born,” said Brian Cartwright, an astrophysicist, co-author, and former general counsel of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
A key difference in the new paper is that many of the black holes involved are younger than those previously studied. These black holes were born in a period when the star formation that followed the formation of black holes was not just beginning, but was well advanced.
“This occurs much later in the universe and is supported by recent measurements of black hole formation and growth made by the Hubble and Webb Space Telescopes,” said co-author Rohir Windhorst, JWST interdisciplinary scientist and professor of Earth and Space. Research at Arizona State University.
“The next question is where these black holes are and how they’ve moved over the last 8 billion years. Scientists are currently working to constrain that,” Crocker said.
Science requires more research and observation opportunities, and now that DESI is online, the exploration of dark energy is just beginning.
“Whether this supports the black hole hypothesis or not, it will only add further depth and clarity to our understanding of dark energy,” Alain said. “As an experimental effort, I think it’s great. You may or may not have biased views, but we are guided by data and observations.
Regardless of what these future observations bring, the current work represents a major shift in dark energy research, the team said.
“In fact, whether black holes have dark energy associated with the universe they live in is no longer just a theoretical question,” Tarle said. “This is an empirical question right now.”
Source: Port Altele
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