Astronomers who are studying the largest map of the universe have found hints until our best understanding of the universe is due to a large rewriting.
The analysis, which looked at approximately 15 million galaxies and a 11 billion years of cosmic time, found found. Dark energy The supposed fixed power that leads the accelerated expansion in our world can develop.
Or at least this is what data collected by A spectral tool for dark energy (Desi), suggested when combining the information taken from the explosions of the stars, the cosmic microwave background and the weak gravitational lens.
If the results are withstood, this means that one of the most mysterious forces that controls the fate of our world is more strange than the first thought – and that there is something very wrong in our current model of the universe. The results of the researchers were published in Multiple leaves On the Preprint Arxiv server and March 19 was offered Global Physics Summit of the American Physical Association In Anheim, California, the peer has not yet been reviewed.
“It is true that the results of Desi alone are consistent with the simplest interpretation of dark energy, which will be unchanging steady,” co -author David ChaliegThe scientist of the Disi project at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California told Live Science. But we cannot ignore other data that extends to both the early universe. [DESI’s results] With this other data when it becomes really strange, this dark energy appears to be “dynamic”, which means that it changes over time. “
The developed universe
Dark energy and Dark material They are two of the most mysterious components in the universe. Together they compensate About 95 % From the universe, but because it does not interact with light, it cannot be discovered directly.
However, these ingredients are major ingredients in the Lambda Cold Dark Matter model (Lambda-CDM) for cosmology, which draws the growth of the universe and expects its end. In this model, the dark matter is responsible for collecting galaxies together and incomprehensible strong gravity processes, while Dark Energy explains the reason to accelerate the expansion of the universe.
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But though countless Notes From these virtual dark entities formation our universeScientists are still not sure where they came, or what they are. Currently, the best theoretical interpretation of dark energy is presented by the theory of quantum field, which describes the space vacuum as full of sea Quantum fields This fluctuates, creating the density of the essential energy in an empty space.
In the wake of the big explosion, this energy increases with the expansion of the area, creating more void and more energy to push the universe faster. This suggestion helped scientists link the dark energy in Al -Kouni Virtual Energy Energy, which grows with the tissue of temporal time throughout the life of the universe. Einstein Lambda called him in his theory of General relativity.
“The problem with this theory is that the numbers do not add,” he said. Catherine HeemanzProfessor of astronomical physics at Edinburgh University and astronomer Royal for Scotland, who did not participate in the study. If I say: “Well, what kind of energy I expect from this type of emptiness? “Live Science” said it is very very different, very, very different, very different from what we measure. “
“It is somewhat exciting that the universe has given us a curved ball here,” she added.
Dark universe
To see if the dark energy changes over time, astronomers have turned into three-year data from Desi, which is installed on the Nicholas U. Mayall 4-Meter telescope in Arizona. Desi defines the monthly positions of millions of galaxies to study how to expand the universe to this day.
By collecting Desi notes, which include approximately 15 million of the best galaxies and measurable parallels (super -black holes things), the researchers reached a strange result.
The telescope notes on its own, in “weak tension” with the Lambda-CDM model, indicated that dark energy may lose strength with the progress of the universe, but without sufficient statistical importance to break the form.
But when it is associated with other observations, such as the light of the universe residue from Cosmic microwave backgroundSupernovas, gravitational forgery of light from remote galaxies, the possibility that dark balloons can develop further. This drives the observations with the standard model of 4.2 cigma, which is a statistical scale on the threshold five–Sigma result Physicists are used as the “gold standard” to calm a new discovery.
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Whether this result will be held or fade over time with more data unclear, but astronomical physicists get more confident that the contradiction is less likely to disappear.
“It seems that these data indicate that the dark energy has become less important today, or it was more important in the early one of the universe,” Sildel said.
Astronomers say that additional answers will come from a fleet of new experiences that are looking into the nature of dark matter and dark energy in our world. These include Space telescope EuclidsNASA Nancy Grace Roman telescopeAnd Disi herself, which is now in the fourth quarter of five years, wipes the sky and will measure 50 million galaxies and Quasars by the time when it is done.
“I think it is fair to say that this result, which is captured in the face value, looks our biggest hint about the nature of the dark energy in [rough] 25 years since we discovered it. Adam ReeseProfessor of astronomy at Johns Hopkins University He won the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics To discover his 1998 team for Dark Energy, tell Live Science. “If it is confirmed, it literally says that the dark energy is not what most everyone thinks, and it is a fixed source of energy, but it may be something more strange.”