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Researchers around the world have long believed that 70% of the universe is made up of dark energy, a substance that allows the universe to expand at an ever increasing rate. But in a new study, researchers at the University of Copenhagen have tested a model that suggests the expansion of the universe is due to a dark substance with some kind of magnetic force. If the model is standing, that means dark energy simply does not exist, according to the UCPH professor behind the study.
Until now, researchers believed dark energy made up nearly 70% of the constantly accelerating and expanding universe. For many years this mechanism has been associated with the so-called cosmological constant, developed by Einstein in 1917, which refers to an unknown repellent cosmic power.
But because the cosmological constant – known as dark energy – cannot be measured directly, many researchers, including Einstein, have questioned its existence – without being able to come up with a viable alternative.
Until now. In a new study by researchers at the University of Copenhagen, a model was tested that replaces dark energy with dark matter in the form of magnetic forces.
Photo of dark matter, invisible to the eye, but shown here in a blue color. Credit: NASA / ESA
“If what we have discovered is correct, it would upset our belief that what we thought was 70% of the universe does not actually exist. We removed dark energy from the equation and added a few more properties for dark matter. It seems to have the same effect on the expansion of the universe as dark energy, ”says Steen Harle Hansen, associate professor at the DARK Cosmology Center at the Niels Bohr Institute.
The universe does not develop differently without dark energy
The usual understanding of how the energy of the universe is distributed is that it is made up of 5% normal matter, 25% dark matter, and 70% dark energy.
In the new model of UCPH researchers, the 25% share of dark matter is given special qualities that make the 70% dark energy redundant.
“We don’t know much about dark matter other than that it’s a heavy, slow particle. But then we asked ourselves – what if dark matter has a quality analogous to magnetism? We know that when normal particles move, they create magnetism. And, magnets attract or repel other magnets – so what if this is what is happening in the universe? That this constant expansion of dark matter is happening through some kind of magnetic force? Steen Hansen asks.
In 1572, Danish physicist Tycho Brahe discovered this supernova called Stella Nova. By measuring the distance of this supernova and other novas, the researchers later concluded that the universe is constantly expanding and at an accelerating speed. Credit: NASA / CXC / SAO
A computer model tests dark matter with a type of magnetic energy
Hansen’s question served as the basis for the new computer model, where researchers included everything they know about the universe – including gravity, the universe’s speed of expansion, and X, the unknown force that expands the universe.
“We developed a model that assumed that dark matter particles have a type of magnetic force and studied the effect that force would have on the universe. It turns out that this would have exactly the same effect on the rate of expansion of the university that we know from dark energy, ”says Steen Hansen.
However, there is still a lot about this mechanism that has not yet been understood by researchers. And all of this needs to be verified in better models that take more factors into consideration. As Hansen says:
“Honestly, our discovery may have just been a coincidence. But if it doesn’t, it’s really amazing. It would change our understanding of the makeup of the universe and why it is developing. From our current knowledge, our ideas about dark matter with a type of magnetic force and the idea about dark energy are just as wild. Only more detailed observations will determine which of these models is the most realistic. So it will be incredibly exciting to test our result again.
Reference: “Coherence analysis of a force dependent on the speed of dark matter as an alternative to the cosmological constant” by Karoline Loeve, Kristine Simone Nielsen and Steen H. Hansen, February 15, 2021, Astrophysics> Cosmology and non-galactic astrophysics.
arXiv: 2102.07792
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