The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) is helping researchers explore the ‘Big Bang played in reverse’.
Scientists using data from DESI are exploring a groundbreaking theory that connects black holes to the universe’s accelerating expansion. The theory suggests that dark energy, which constitutes about 70% of the universe and drives its expansion, may originate from processes occurring within black holes, akin to a reverse Big Bang.
Exploring the Dark Energy Enigma
Nearly 14 billion years ago, at the onset of the Big Bang, a mysterious energy triggered an exponential expansion that created all known matter. This event, described by the inflationary universe theory, set the stage for the cosmos as we know it.
This ancient energy shares some key properties with the dark energy present in today’s universe—a profound mystery. Dark energy makes up about 70% of the universe, yet its nature remains elusive to scientists.
The Reverse Big Bang Theory
“If you ask yourself the question, ‘Where in the later universe do we see gravity as strong as it was at the beginning of the universe?’ the answer is at the center of black holes,” said Gregory Tarlé, a physics professor at the University of Michigan and co-author of the study. “It’s possible that what happened during inflation runs in reverse, the matter of a massive star becomes dark energy again during gravitational collapse—like a little Big Bang played in reverse.”
In a recent study published in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, Tarlé and collaborators from five institutions present new evidence supporting this idea, gathered using data from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI). DESI, comprising 5,000 robotic eyes on the Mayall Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory on the Tohono O’odham Nation’s land, offers fresh insights into the relationship between black holes and dark energy
Black Holes and Cosmic Acceleration
“If black holes contain dark energy, they can couple to and grow with the expanding universe, causing its growth to accelerate,” said Kevin Croker, 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 is happening, but we can see evidence that it is happening.”
Data from the first year of DESI’s planned five-year survey shows tantalizing evidence that the density of dark energy increased in time. This provides a compelling clue supporting this idea of what dark energy is, the researchers said, because that increase in time agrees with how the amount and mass of black holes increased in time.
“When I first got involved with the project, I was very skeptical,” said co-author Steve Ahlen, professor emeritus of physics at Boston University. “But I maintained an open mind throughout the entire process and when we started doing the cosmology calculations, I said, ‘Well, this is a really nice mechanism for making dark energy.'”
Analyzing Galactic Data
To search for evidence of dark energy from black holes, the team used tens of millions of distant galaxies measured by DESI. The instrument peers billions of years into the past and collects data that can be used to determine how fast the universe is expanding with exquisite precision. In turn, these data can be used to infer how the amount of dark energy is changing in time.
The team compared these data to how many black holes were being made in the deaths of large stars across the history of the universe.
“The two phenomena were consistent with each other—as new black holes were made in the deaths of massive stars, the amount of dark energy in the universe increased in the right way,” said Duncan Farrah, associate professor of physics at the University of Hawai’i and co-author of the study. “This makes it more plausible that black holes are the source of dark energy.”
Further Investigations Into Dark Energy
This research complements a growing body of literature studying the possibility of cosmological coupling in black holes. A 2023 study, involving many of the authors on this paper, reported cosmological coupling in supermassive black holes within galactic centers. That 2023 report encouraged other teams to search for the effect in black holes across all the different places they can be found in the universe.
“Those papers investigate the link between dark energy to black holes by their rate of growth. Our new paper links black holes to dark energy by when they are born,” said Brian Cartwright, an astrophysicist, co-author, and former general counsel of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The Evolving Study of Black Holes
A key difference in the new paper is that the majority of the relevant black holes are younger than those previously examined. These black holes were born in an epoch when star formation—which tracks black hole formation—was well underway, rather than just beginning.
“This occurs much later in the universe and is informed by recent measurements of black hole production and growth as observed with the Hubble and Webb space telescopes,” said co-author Rogier Windhorst, an interdisciplinary scientist for the JWST and professor of earth and space exploration at Arizona State University.
“The next question is where these black holes are, and how they have been moving around for the past 8 billion years. Scientists are working to constrain this right now,” Croker said.
Future Prospects in Dark Energy Research
Science demands more avenues of inquiry and observations, and now that DESI is online, this exploration for dark energy is just getting started.
“This will only bring more depth and clarity to our understanding of dark energy, whether that continues to support the black hole hypothesis or not,” Ahlen said. “I think as an experimental endeavor, it’s wonderful. You can have preconceived notions or not, but we’re driven by data and observations.”
Regardless of what those future observations bring, the work happening now represents a sea change in dark energy research, the team said.
“Fundamentally, whether black holes are dark energy, coupled to the universe they inhabit, has ceased to be just a theoretical question,” Tarlé said. “This is an experimental question now.”
Reference: “DESI dark energy time evolution is recovered by cosmologically coupled black holes” by Kevin S. Croker, Gregory Tarlé, Steve P. Ahlen, Brian G. Cartwright, Duncan Farrah, Nicolas Fernandez and Rogier A. Windhorst, 28 October 2024, Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics.
DOI: 10.1088/1475-7516/2024/10/094
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17 Comments
If black holes created dark energy, would they evaporate with it?
https://scitechdaily.com/the-universes-hidden-backbone-alma-unveils-dark-matters-fine-scale-fingerprint/
Figure 1 is pretty definitive for DM and it’s clearly very wavy at the galactic scale. A cluster scale wave is also possible. Maybe DE fills up the troughs between the peaks.
I mean the figure there looks like two galactic cores interfering at nearly right angles.
I suppose quantum gravity carriers can collectively show “aim” (direction) and synchronized “roll” (i.e. collective tumbling, or collective pitching, or collective longitudinal rotating) much like the effects of a pitcher’s hand at a carrier release point, although curves aren’t relevant as there is only vacuum to be considered. Aim and rotation effects are the quantum gravity carrier’s controlled variables. Rotational momentum may be conserved in the un-hindered carrier at any rotation rate.
The dark regions in Fig. 1 in the 2023 ALMA DM “fingerprint” article were basically predicted in my remark several months beforehand – “A sufficiently expanded thin section reconstruction will predictably show regular notably round voids.”
https://scitechdaily.com/groundbreaking-new-dark-matter-map-validates-einsteins-theory-of-general-relativity/
Another effective prediction (4/21/23) of the DM lensing effect picked up by ALMA and later shown in the 11/12/23 article cited above is in comments at
https://scitechdaily.com/dark-order-in-the-universe-distant-galaxies-align-to-support-einsteins-general-relativity/
“The image in the latest news about axions seen in lensed galaxies appears to be show the effect on light from two sources of concentric galactic-scale vector gravity ripples interfering together..”
Also, notice how it’s always telegraphed as validating GR even though General Relativity is effectively invalidated with the DM effect despite all official imperial science mafia representations to the contrary.
The quote reads better as:
“The image in the latest news about axions seen in lensed galaxies appears to … show the effect on light from two sources of concentric galactic-scale vector gravity ripples interfering …”
Another interesting thing to me about “galaxies aligned” to supposedly backstop GR is the cluster-scale distributions fitting full and partial ring (or helix) patterns cited as working against predictions of cosmic homogeneity based in large part on GR and DE.
The Larsson internet creature can also be found at the link stalking and braying away for what little it’s worth.
Albert Einstein theory of mass transition sounds like a good explanation of the connection between Dark energy and Black holes , the core concept of Special Theory of Relativity . The claps of a star to a black hole changes mass to energy , the question to resolve would be , How much mass is transformed to dark energy and is all the transformation instantaneous or does the black hole release the dark energy over time thous the increasing expansion rate .
So the universe converted itself from a gigantic point of infinite density (a black hole) to a vast (infinite?) system of starry delights that produces small black holes and lots of unknown dark energy produced by black holes. Sounds about right,to me.
So what happens next?
What if the universe is not actually an extension of the surface of a black hole? I mean Reality, it’s truly Mind Blowing.
If you multiply anti-dS space by dS space, will you get a flat earth?
Could you chain a bunch of parallel Planck-scale wormholes together for that and for any desired enhanced light-speed?
Needs answer for famous Hollywood university physics homework.
Maybe the Larsson reddit propaganda-bot group can help.
I get sarcasm, but some hallucinating “Einstein theory” propaganda-bot might “correct” you if you get too sarcastic.
Seems with Einstein’s deSitter space it’s the case that increased gravity has the wavelength-stretching (redshift) effect of slowing time and vertically stretching objects, but the idea of confining a black hole to a 2D surface embodies the effect of gravity completely compressing objects vertically, like with an anti-deSitter space.
Situation being taught implies increased gravity compresses matter while it permanently redshift-stretches light (even if the light leaves the locality) along with stretching local light-calibrated meter sticks (but not non-local meter sticks in different gravity), with the consequence of exaggerating the local compression of local matter.
Seems if you replace those ideas with the notion that vertical light-speed increases along with the increased falling rates in increased gravity, then the length and time measurement exaggerations can disappear while the realism remains, but that was an old pre-WWII European ideal that could only be favored if Einsteinian thought-slaving logic was not so critical to globally depressing all inconvenient observers.
It’s not that there’s a different local speed of light for falling light. It’s also not involving a pure acceleration like a falling mass. Lightspeed instead depends directly on location (gravitational potential) instead of showing the integrable velocity changes that mass can show. It’s still the notion that light speed increases with strengthening gravity in descending light and decreases in weakening gravity. This permits a constant (a “flat-space”) wavelength in light even when the light shows gravity changing the frequency of the light along with the speed, it also permits using a constant meter stick to measure wavelengths and other distances correctly even under gravity variations. The alternative, general relativity, becomes just a useful way of depressing youthful rational thought, conceivably even using trampolines for emphasis, in a subject population.
There will always be people who think a sped-up clock agrees nicely with things appearing to be falling slower, but that’s true whether or not things are actually falling slower. Problem is that it’s unnatural to adjust a clock in such a way, it becomes an unrealistic clock divorced from reality.
What if super massive black holes start to pull in space-time itself? Imagining space-time as a grid, perhaps it is being pulled all ways by super massive black holes, stretching space-time further than it would naturally from cosmic expansion.