The Universe has been expanding since the Big Bang, but calculations of its expansion – which is still ongoing – divide the scientific community.
A team of astrophysicists from the University of Southern Denmark suggests that a previously unknown dark energy could have been the reason behind this phenomenon.
The problem is that the calculations of the expansion vary according to the method, something that does not allow scientists to create a unified cosmological map. The team led by Martin S. Sloth and Florian Niedermann proposes the existence of a new type of dark energy that would help solve the problem of contradictory calculations.
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According to existing ideas, the universe came to life as a result of the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago, and then began to expand, and this expansion continues to this day. Most physicists agree with this, but with regard to the expansion rate, everything is not so simple. The point is that different measurement methods give different values of this parameter, which is most important for cosmology.
When physicists calculate the expansion rate, they are based on the assumption that the universe is made up of dark energy, dark matter, and ordinary matter. About twenty percent is accounted for by matter – both ordinary matter, from which planets, stars, and galaxies are made and dark, the nature of which nothing is known – and more than 70 percent is energy, which makes the Universe expand.
Until recently, all types of observations corresponded to this model of the composition of matter and energy of the Universe, but when interpreting the latest data from observations of supernovae and cosmic microwave background radiation, discrepancies appear. It turned out that these two observation methods lead to different results for the expansion rate.
Researchers at the Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics Phenomenology, University of Southern Denmark, Professor Martin Sloth and graduate student Florian Niedermann have suggested that the problem of conflicting calculations can be solved by the assumption of the existence of another form of dark energy in the early stages of the evolution of the Universe.
“In our model, we find that if there was a new type of extra dark energy in the early universe, it would explain both the background radiation and the supernova measurements simultaneously and without contradiction,” says Professor Slot in a university press release adding that “In the same way, dark energy in our model undergoes a transition to a new phase with a lower energy density, thereby changing the effect of the dark energy on the expansion of the universe.”
“It is a phase transition where many bubbles of the new phase suddenly appear, and when these bubbles expand and collide, the phase transition is complete. On a cosmic scale, it is a very violent quantum mechanical process,” the scientist explains.
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According to the authors’ calculations, if such a phase transition of dark energy is incorporated into the model, an integral consistent picture is formed, in which at a certain stage in the evolution of the Universe, the rate of its expansion changes.
The results of the study are published in the journal Physical Review D.