A new theory aims to account for one of the universe’s great mysteries.
Earlier this week, a study made headlines claiming that the mysterious “dark energy” cosmologists believe is accelerating the expansion of the universe could arise from supermassive black holes at the hearts of galaxies. If true, the connection would link two of the most mind-bending concepts in physics—black holes and dark energy—and suggest that the source of the latter has been under theorists’ noses for decades. However, some leading theorists are deeply skeptical of the idea.
In contrast, dark energy is a mysterious phenomenon that literally stretches space and is accelerating the expansion of the universe. Theorists think dark energy could represent some new sort of field in space, a bit like an electric field, or it could be a fundamental property of empty space itself.
One consequence of this idea—that supermassive black holes are the source of dark energy—is that they would be linked to the constant stretching of space and their mass should change as the universe expands, says astrophysicist Duncan Farrah of the University of Hawaii, Manoa. “If the volume of the universe doubles, so does the mass of the black hole,” he adds.
in exactly the way that researchers observed in the centers of elliptical galaxies, Farrah’s team additionally reported this week inWald is unpersuaded. He questions how an orb of pure dark energy could be stable. He also says the numbers don’t seem to add up: Dark energy is known to make up 70% of the mass-energy of the universe, whereas black holes are a mere fraction of the ordinary matter, which constitutes less than 5% of the universe.
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