Unknown physics can help Dark Energy act as an “anti -gravity” throughout the universe

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Dark energy can have an accomplice that helps him slow down the growth of large cosmic structures, such as huge superclasses made up of groups of galaxies.

A new analysis of astronomical data suggests that the unknown physics works, supporting the dark energy in the activity almost as “anti -gravity”, canceling the work of gravity, which accumulates together for the construction of huge structures.

The large -scale structure of the universe refers to huge, interconnected models of galaxies, galactic clusters and super clubs organized in filaments, gaps and walls that contain the “space network”.

Gravity has formed this structure for billions of years. The team found that today it was formed more slowly than the speed at which it was formed in the distant past of the 13.8 billion annual universe.

Researchers have discovered these hints of new physics, using data from the barion spectroscopic examination (BOSS).

Boss maps the spatial distribution of luminous red galaxies (LRGs) and quasar with black holes to detect variations in the Early Universe, or “acoustic vibrations of Barion” that are “frozen in” space fossils).

“We have found that the formation of the structure in the late universe, as studied by the galaxies in the boss’s study, seems to have been suppressed with the expectations,” the team leader and the Princeton Shi-Fan University’s researcher told Space.com. “In fact, our results suggest that suppression is quite independent of dark energy.”

Why Dark Energy may not act on its own

Dark Energy is the name of the substitutes for everything that speeds up the expansion of the universe. Discovered by two independent astronomers in 1998, it is believed that Dark Energy represents about 70% of the total Cosmos budget for energy.

The present “best explanation” for dark energy is the “cosmological constant” represented by the Greek letter lambda (L) In the so -called standard cosmology model, also known as lambda cold dark matter (LCDM) model.

The cosmological constant is a “vacuum energy” or the energy of the empty space. This may sound very strange as it is related to pairs of matter and antimaterial particles that pop out and beyond existence. If the pair of particles of matter and antimators is created with the same and opposite energy in a limited space, then the total energy of this space is still zero.

This is close to the facility of the overdraft of the universe, but instead of borrowing money, it gives energy. However, just like a bank, the universe requires this energy to be paid, which virtual particles make by destroying.

This means that “empty space” can never be guaranteed to be empty.

No matter how crazy it is, as the idea of ​​coming out of nothing that it doesn’t sound, we checked it experimentally. The effect of Casimir, observed in laboratories around the world, is a very well -known example of virtual particles and quantum fluctuations that create them and thus vacuum energy.

Here are the Kickers: If Dark Energy is the Cosmological Constant, it should be just that, Constant. So in LCDM, although dark energy causes a change in the speed at which the universe expands, the cosmological constant should not change.

Recently, however, the anomalies in the results of the spectroscopic instrument of dark energy (DESI) have caused movement with cosmologists when they indicated that dark energy changes over time. Thus, this changing or “dynamic dark energy” is contrary to LCDM.

“The latest DESI results suggest that dark energy may not be a cosmological constant, but more recently it can develop over time – we were curious to see if this tension with LCDM can be bound by the suppression of the structure, “Chen said.

If nothing else, checking DESI’s findings with BOSS data left the team with a greater mystery to their hands.

Dark energy and cosmological constant

Whatever dark energy, be it a cosmological constant or something, the expansion of space time works on an extremely large scale, so you will not see your coffee glass that extends from you, and the dark energy will not make your journey work longer every morning (there is another apology through the window).

However we can See remote galaxies that move away from us at continuous accelerating speeds. We can also see their effects in BAO fluctuations frozen in CMB, because this excavated light from an event as soon as the Big Bang is almost evenly widespread throughout the universe.

As such, it should not be a surprise that dark energy, as a force that is divided into galaxies, plays a role in stopping large -scale structures such as galactic clusters and superclasses of formation.

What is remarkable for the results obtained by Chen and colleagues is that they show that today large-scale structures are even less common than provided by the two LCDM Model of Cosmology and When the dark energy is allowed to vary. This implies something else, something new, is also in a game whose identity is unknown.

“Many different theoretical explanations have been given why the measured amplitude of the cosmic structure in later times seems to be slightly below expectations,” Chen said. “There are no categorical answers at the moment.”

However, there is one clue about the suppression of large -scale cosmic structures. This suppression seems to have begun about the same time when the dark energy came to dominate the universe.

When matter rules space

Dark energy can manage the universe now. But that wasn’t always the way. Immediately after the big explosion, the universe was dominated by radiation, moving its rapid inflation.

About 70,000 years after the Big Bang, the universe has cooled enough to allow gravity to flood the radiation pressure. This delayed the initial extension driven by the Big Bang, bringing it to almost braking, and the first units of matter, stars and galaxies were allowed to form.

About 9 to 10 billion years after the Big Bang, or about 5 to 4 billion years ago, something strange began to happen. The universe began to expand again. Not only that, but this expansion has begun to accelerate and it is still accelerating.

This is the beginning of the dark energy -dominated era; The problem is that no one knows how the transition from matter to dark energy domination happened.

“The boss’s data explores the universe when dark energy begins to begin and we think this suppression cannot happen much earlier than that,” Chen said.

So, while dark energy seems to be related to this suppression, this mysterious force still cannot explain only why the formation of large cosmic structures is delayed in the modern universe.

“When we combine the probes of the special speeds of these galaxies, known as distortions of red displacement of space, and their cross correlation with the weak CMB lens, we find that our results will occur due to a random chance of 300,000,” Chen said. “This suggests either that there is some unknown physics physics, or that there is some unknown systematic error in the boss’s data.”

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The researcher added that with better data on the horizon, including the first public Galaxy grouping data from DESI, published last week, the team will reinstall its methods, compare its results with their current findings and find any statistically significant differences.

“I think there are more questions at this point than answers,” Chen said. “This study certainly applies the idea that different cosmological data sets begin to be in voltage when interpreted within the standard LCDM cosmology model. “

The team studies were published in the magazine Physical Review Letters.