#Standard Model of Cosmology

[contemplatingoutlander]

This is an excellent article by astrophysicist Dr. Adam Frank and theoretical physicist Dr. Marcelo Gleiser about how information from the James Webb Space Telescope is changing physicists' perceptions about the standard model of cosmology. 😱

Since how we understand the universe seems rather important, the link above is a gift🎁link to the article, so that even if you do not subscribe to The New York Times, you can read the entire article. Below are a few excerpts:

Not long after the James Webb Space Telescope began beaming back from outer space its stunning images of planets and nebulae last year, astronomers, though dazzled, had to admit that something was amiss. Eight months later, based in part on what the telescope has revealed, it’s beginning to look as if we may need to rethink key features of the origin and development of the universe. [...] But one of the Webb’s first major findings was exciting in an uncomfortable sense: It discovered the existence of fully formed galaxies far earlier than should have been possible according to the so-called standard model of cosmology. According to the standard model, which is the basis for essentially all research in the field, there is a fixed and precise sequence of events that followed the Big Bang: First, the force of gravity pulled together denser regions in the cooling cosmic gas, which grew to become stars and black holes; then, the force of gravity pulled together the stars into galaxies. The Webb data, though, revealed that some very large galaxies formed really fast, in too short a time, at least according to the standard model. This was no minor discrepancy. The finding is akin to parents and their children appearing in a story when the grandparents are still children themselves. [...] Working so close to the boundary between science and philosophy, cosmologists are continually haunted by the ghosts of basic assumptions hiding unseen in the tools we use — such as the assumption that scientific laws don’t change over time. But that’s precisely the sort of assumption we might have to start questioning in order to figure out what’s wrong with the standard model. One possibility, raised by the physicist Lee Smolin and the philosopher Roberto Mangabeira Unger, is that the laws of physics can evolve and change over time. Different laws might even compete for effectiveness. An even more radical possibility, discussed by the physicist John Wheeler, is that every act of observation influences the future and even the past history of the universe. (Dr. Wheeler, working to understand the paradoxes of quantum mechanics, conceived of a “participatory universe” in which every act of observation was in some sense a new act of creation.) [...] The philosopher Robert Crease has written that philosophy is what’s required when doing more science may not answer a scientific question. It’s not clear yet if that’s what’s needed to overcome the crisis in cosmology. But if more tweaks and adjustments don’t do the trick, we may need not just a new story of the universe but also a new way to tell stories about it. [color emphasis added]

Image caption: "These six galaxies may force astronomers to rewrite cosmology books. (Image credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, I. LABBE)"

___________ Gif source (before minor edits)

[leapingmonkeys]

'The models were right!' Astronomers locate universe's 'missing' matter in the largest cosmic structures

[baaldigital]

Thunderbolts of the Gods!

[dduane]

Okay, here’s a new one.

In a new paper published in Physical Review D, the researchers propose a new model for the origin of the Universe - claiming that its formation is the result of a gravitational collapse that generated a massive black hole, followed by a ‘bounce’ inside, which means that our universe may have emerged from the interior of a black hole formed within a larger parent universe. They are calling the new model the ‘Black Hole Universe’, offering a radically different view of cosmic origins which is grounded entirely in known physics and observations The paper suggests that rather than the birth of the Universe being from nothing, it is the continuation of a cosmic cycle - one shaped by gravity, quantum mechanics, and the deep interconnections between them. While the existing standard cosmological model, based on the Big Bang and cosmic inflation, has been successful in explaining the structure and evolution of the Universe, it leaves some fundamental questions unanswered.  Professor Gaztanaga said: “The Big Bang model begins with a point of infinite density where the laws of physics break down. This is a deep theoretical problem that suggests the beginning of the Universe is not fully understood.  “We’ve questioned that model and tackled questions from a different angle -  by looking inward instead of outward. Instead of starting with an expanding Universe and asking how it began, we considered what happens when an overdensity of matter collapses under gravity.”

(See also "Kicking The Can Up/Down The Road", Universe Creation variant...)

[niuniente]

Physicist Nassim Haramein’s Prediction that the Universe is Rotating Receives a Second Strong Observational Confirmation

by Dr. William Brown, International Space Federation (7th of March, 2025)

In this fascinating 2020 study, researchers observed hundreds of galaxies spinning in synchronized patterns across 20 million light years—a phenomenon deemed "impossible" under standard cosmological models. The observed coherence implies that all of the galaxies are embedded in a large-scale structure that is rotating counter-clockwise. This synchronization should not be there according to the currently accepted cosmological model (the lambda cold dark matter or ΛCDM model).

While conventional physics still struggles with this discovery, Haramein's unified physics theory had already predicted it by demonstrating that mass-energy creates both curvature and torque in spacetime. Because of the ubiquitous nature of spin, which Haramein saw emerging within the mathematics, it led him to predict that we will observe spin across scale, including the universe itself!

Galaxies experiencing a uniform field of torque within a rotating universe will have non-random alignments, just as was observed.

The International Space Federation continues advancing research that challenges traditional cosmological principles to develop a more complete understanding of our dynamic universe.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE

[artbyblastweave]

A tool I find generally pretty useful for thinking about and classifying superhero systems is the Wild Talents Axes of Design, a worldbuilding tool from an RPG that I have not and most likely will not ever play. The system categorizes and ranks superhero settings on four axes:

The Red Axis measures Historical Inertia, how much the existence of superhumans causes the timeline to diverge from our own. A high-red setting represents the standard implausibly-recognizable like-reality-unless-noted world-outside-your-window model. A low-red setting is a total alternate history.

The Gold Axis measures Superhuman Inertia (talent inertia in their internal jargon, but we've all got our own names for these assholes.) This one measures how closely superhumans hew to classic paradigms of heroism and villainy, as opposed to branching out into other societal roles or life outcomes. A high-gold setting is the prototypical endless monthly game of cops and robbers; A low-gold setting would be something like Wild Cards or Top 10, where career superheroes are a rounding error (or even a downright oddity) compared to people with powers.

The Blue Axis measures what they term The Lovely and the Pointless- essentially how much weirdness exists outside the superheroes themselves, or, more practically, how unified the setting's cosmology and power sources are. High-Blue settings are the bizarre and irreconcilable genre kitchen sinks full of aliens, gods, magicians, one million ways to get superpowers and three different kinds of time travel. Low Blue settings would be The Boys, Worm, or Wild Cards- any setting where there's a discrete reason that superhumans happened and nothing supernatural going on outside of that point of origin.

The Black Axis measures Moral Clarity, which is about what it sounds like. High Black Settings are the cartoonishly-clear-cut battles of good and evil, low black settings are omnidirectional amoral clusterfucks where the participants have superpowers.

(The joke, of course, being that if you crank all four colors up all the way, you end up with a full CMYK print, and a reproduction of the aesthetic of classic golden and silver age superhero faire.)

Obviously this isn't a perfect system- it suffers from the perennial, probably inevitable issue that the four of these don't granulate equally well but they feel the need to articulate five nodes for each of them, just to keep it neat- and consequentially it sometimes feels a little like they're struggling to justify why some of the arrangements that they're describing are meaningfully distinct from the nearest tick up or down the axis. I'm also not entirely sure how it integrates this fifth axis I think is pretty important- the question of the degree to which the public is aware of superhumans at all.

But it does provide some interesting and useful language for quick-and-dirty compare and contrast work. Watchmen is Low Blue, Low Black, Mid-Red High-Gold. Invincible is High-Blue Mid-Black High Red Mid-Gold. Worm is Low-Blue-Mid-Black-Low-Red-Mid-Gold. I don't even stand by these ratings necessarily, I just think it would be super neat going forward if I were able to throw out a phrase like "High-Blue interpretation of Superman" and successfully convey that it means we're finally gonna get to see Superman fight a wizard in live action, for example. I think there's slept-upon terminology available to us here

[mindblowingscience]

Astronomers have stumbled upon yet another ghostly galaxy that appears to be devoid of dark matter. Dark matter, the invisible substance astronomers believe dominates the universe, provides the gravitational scaffolding for galaxies to assemble and grow. Discovering a galaxy without dark matter is indeed perplexing, like finding a shadow without a source.

Continue Reading.

[mysteriousbloodstain]

if ur into snuff u might be interested in what’s been happening to the standard model of cosmology

[mysticstronomy]

IS THERE A FIFTH FORCE OF NATURE??

Blog#472

Saturday, January 18th, 2025.

Welcome back,

Could a new, fifth force of nature provide some answers to our biggest questions about dark matter and dark energy? We’re working on it.

The Standard Model is, for all intents and purposes, the supreme accomplishment of modern physics. It describes four forces of nature, a zoo of particles, and how they all interact. It is perhaps the most successful scientific theory of all time.

And it’s fantastically incomplet.

It turns out that the Standard Model is able to account for less than 5% of all the matter and energy in the cosmos. Another 25% or so is Dark Matter, an unknown kind of matter that is for all intents and purposes invisible. The rest is known as Dark Energy, a mysterious entity that is causing the expansion of the universe to accelerate.

One of the first things astronomers noticed when they first discovered dark matter and dark energy was their apparent similarity. Why in the world are the two dark components of our universe roughly the same strength? I know, 25% and 70% don’t sound very similar, but when it comes to astronomy – and especially cosmology – they’re basically the exact same number.

Maybe it’s just a coincidence that they have about the same strength, and we’re overthinking it.

Or maybe it’s something else. Clever physicists have proposed connections within the “dark sector” of the universe, where dark matter and dark energy talk to each other. This would allow them to follow each other’s evolution, ensuring that they have roughly equal contributions to the energy budget of the universe for long periods of time.

To make them talk to each other, you need a force. But this force can’t be any of the known ones, otherwise dark matter and/or dark energy must also interact with normal matter, and we would have seen more directly evidence of them already.

So it has to be a new force, a fifth force of nature, completely different from electromagnetism, gravity, strong nuclear, and weak nuclear. While ideas like this remain only in the realm of hypothesis, some of the ideas already have names.

Originally published on https://www.universetoday.com

COMING UP!!

(Wednesday, January 22nd, 2025)

"DOES DARK MATTER REALLY EXIST??"

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Satellite galaxies gone awry: Andromeda's asymmetrical companions challenge cosmology

The Andromeda galaxy is surrounded by a constellation of dwarf galaxies that are arranged in a highly lopsided manner. Analysis of cosmological simulations published in Nature Astronomy reveal that this degree of asymmetry is only found in 0.3% of similar systems, painting Andromeda as a striking outlier in the current cosmological paradigm.

The spatial distribution of galaxies provides crucial insights into cosmology and dark matter physics. According to the standard cosmological model, small galaxies merge over time in a chaotic process to form larger ones, leaving behind swarms of faint dwarf galaxies that orbit massive host galaxies in an almost random arrangement.

But new research at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) shows that the satellite galaxies of the neighboring Andromeda galaxy (M31) have surprising and thus far unexplained properties.

Instead of being randomly spread around their host galaxy, as the standard model of cosmology predicts, over 80% of these dwarf galaxies are concentrated on one side of the Andromeda galaxy. A recent dataset of homogeneous distance measurements for 37 Andromeda satellites highlights this unexpected arrangement.

Specifically, all but one of Andromeda's satellites lie within 107 degrees of the line pointing towards the Milky Way, a region covering only 64% of the host galaxy's surroundings. Until now, it was unclear whether this peculiar configuration significantly challenges the current cosmological model or falls within the range of cosmic variance.

"This asymmetry has persisted and even became more pronounced as fainter galaxies have been discovered and their distances refined," explains Mr. Kosuke Jamie Kanehisa, Ph.D. student at the AIP and lead-author of the study. "Our analyses show that such a pattern is extremely rare in current cosmological simulations."

Modern cosmological simulations, which track galaxy evolution over cosmic time, provide a valuable tool to predict and compare galaxy systems under the standard cosmological framework.

"Using two prominent simulations, we searched for Andromeda-like host galaxies and analyzed the spatial distribution of their dwarf satellites using custom metrics to quantify asymmetry. Comparing Andromeda's observed configuration to these simulated analogs revealed that its satellite distribution is extraordinarily rare," says Dr. Marcel S. Pawlowski from AIP.

"We have to look at more than three hundred simulated systems to find just one that is similarly extreme in its asymmetry as observed." This makes Andromeda an extreme outlier, defying cosmological expectations.

Andromeda's asymmetry becomes even more perplexing when combined with its other unusual feature: half of its satellites co-orbit in a thin, planar structure, reminiscent of planets orbiting the sun. The coexistence of such a plane of satellite galaxies and a lopsided satellite distribution is highly unexpected in the standard cosmological model.

This raises questions about whether Andromeda's evolutionary history is uniquely anomalous or if our understanding of galaxy formation at small scales is incomplete.

Although these findings challenge current cosmological theories, they rely heavily on the accuracy of the underlying simulations, which are limited by how well they model stellar physics and galaxy evolution.

The next steps involve determining whether Andromeda's configuration is a unique outlier or if similarly anisotropic galaxy systems exist elsewhere.

Efforts to study distant systems and search for comparable asymmetries are already underway, and next-generation surveys like Euclid will accelerate this search. Additionally, further analysis of Andromeda's merger history will help determine if such extreme asymmetries can naturally arise in a dark matter-dominated universe—and why they remain absent in current simulations.

[netmassimo]

An article published in the journal "Nature" reports the discovery of three ultramassive galaxies in the early universe in which stars are forming with an efficiency almost twice that of galaxies of average mass by the standards of that era. A team of researchers coordinated by the University of Geneva (UNIGE) used observations conducted with the James Webb space telescope within the FRESCO program. The three galaxies (Image NASA/CSA/ESA, M. Xiao & P. ​​A. Oesch (University of Geneva), G. Brammer (Niels Bohr Institute), Dawn JWST Archive), which were cataloged as S1, S2, and S3, are almost as massive as the Milky Way and add to others that were discovered in recent years and are difficult to explain with the most accepted cosmological models, starting with lambda-CDM.

[jcmarchi]

Study: Early dark energy could resolve cosmology’s two biggest puzzles

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/study-early-dark-energy-could-resolve-cosmologys-two-biggest-puzzles/

Study: Early dark energy could resolve cosmology’s two biggest puzzles

A new study by MIT physicists proposes that a mysterious force known as early dark energy could solve two of the biggest puzzles in cosmology and fill in some major gaps in our understanding of how the early universe evolved.

One puzzle in question is the “Hubble tension,” which refers to a mismatch in measurements of how fast the universe is expanding. The other involves observations of numerous early, bright galaxies that existed at a time when the early universe should have been much less populated.

Now, the MIT team has found that both puzzles could be resolved if the early universe had one extra, fleeting ingredient: early dark energy. Dark energy is an unknown form of energy that physicists suspect is driving the expansion of the universe today. Early dark energy is a similar, hypothetical phenomenon that may have made only a brief appearance, influencing the expansion of the universe in its first moments before disappearing entirely.

Some physicists have suspected that early dark energy could be the key to solving the Hubble tension, as the mysterious force could accelerate the early expansion of the universe by an amount that would resolve the measurement mismatch.

The MIT researchers have now found that early dark energy could also explain the baffling number of bright galaxies that astronomers have observed in the early universe. In their new study, reported today in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, the team modeled the formation of galaxies in the universe’s first few hundred million years. When they incorporated a dark energy component only in that earliest sliver of time, they found the number of galaxies that arose from the primordial environment bloomed to fit astronomers’ observations.

“You have these two looming open-ended puzzles,” says study co-author Rohan Naidu, a postdoc in MIT’s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research. “We find that in fact, early dark energy is a very elegant and sparse solution to two of the most pressing problems in cosmology.”

The study’s co-authors include lead author and Kavli postdoc Xuejian (Jacob) Shen, and MIT professor of physics Mark Vogelsberger, along with Michael Boylan-Kolchin at the University of Texas at Austin, and Sandro Tacchella at the University of Cambridge.

Big city lights

Based on standard cosmological and galaxy formation models, the universe should have taken its time spinning up the first galaxies. It would have taken billions of years for primordial gas to coalesce into galaxies as large and bright as the Milky Way.

But in 2023, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) made a startling observation. With an ability to peer farther back in time than any observatory to date, the telescope uncovered a surprising number of bright galaxies as large as the modern Milky Way within the first 500 million years, when the universe was just 3 percent of its current age.

“The bright galaxies that JWST saw would be like seeing a clustering of lights around big cities, whereas theory predicts something like the light around more rural settings like Yellowstone National Park,” Shen says. “And we don’t expect that clustering of light so early on.”

For physicists, the observations imply that there is either something fundamentally wrong with the physics underlying the models or a missing ingredient in the early universe that scientists have not accounted for. The MIT team explored the possibility of the latter, and whether the missing ingredient might be early dark energy.

Physicists have proposed that early dark energy is a sort of antigravitational force that is turned on only at very early times. This force would counteract gravity’s inward pull and accelerate the early expansion of the universe, in a way that would resolve the mismatch in measurements. Early dark energy, therefore, is considered the most likely solution to the Hubble tension.

Galaxy skeleton

The MIT team explored whether early dark energy could also be the key to explaining the unexpected population of large, bright galaxies detected by JWST. In their new study, the physicists considered how early dark energy might affect the early structure of the universe that gave rise to the first galaxies. They focused on the formation of dark matter halos — regions of space where gravity happens to be stronger, and where matter begins to accumulate.

“We believe that dark matter halos are the invisible skeleton of the universe,” Shen explains. “Dark matter structures form first, and then galaxies form within these structures. So, we expect the number of bright galaxies should be proportional to the number of big dark matter halos.”

The team developed an empirical framework for early galaxy formation, which predicts the number, luminosity, and size of galaxies that should form in the early universe, given some measures of “cosmological parameters.” Cosmological parameters are the basic ingredients, or mathematical terms, that describe the evolution of the universe.

Physicists have determined that there are at least six main cosmological parameters, one of which is the Hubble constant — a term that describes the universe’s rate of expansion. Other parameters describe density fluctuations in the primordial soup, immediately after the Big Bang, from which dark matter halos eventually form.

The MIT team reasoned that if early dark energy affects the universe’s early expansion rate, in a way that resolves the Hubble tension, then it could affect the balance of the other cosmological parameters, in a way that might increase the number of bright galaxies that appear at early times. To test their theory, they incorporated a model of early dark energy (the same one that happens to resolve the Hubble tension) into an empirical galaxy formation framework to see how the earliest dark matter structures evolve and give rise to the first galaxies.

“What we show is, the skeletal structure of the early universe is altered in a subtle way where the amplitude of fluctuations goes up, and you get bigger halos, and brighter galaxies that are in place at earlier times, more so than in our more vanilla models,” Naidu says. “It means things were more abundant, and more clustered in the early universe.”

“A priori, I would not have expected the abundance of JWST’s early bright galaxies to have anything to do with early dark energy, but their observation that EDE pushes cosmological parameters in a direction that boosts the early-galaxy abundance is interesting,” says Marc Kamionkowski, professor of theoretical physics at Johns Hopkins University, who was not involved with the study. “I think more work will need to be done to establish a link between early galaxies and EDE, but regardless of how things turn out, it’s a clever — and hopefully ultimately fruitful — thing to try.”

“We demonstrated the potential of early dark energy as a unified solution to the two major issues faced by cosmology. This might be an evidence for its existence if the observational findings of JWST get further consolidated,” Vogelsberger concludes. “In the future, we can incorporate this into large cosmological simulations to see what detailed predictions we get.”

This research was supported, in part, by NASA and the National Science Foundation.

[witchofanguish]

I think this is worth digging into because... yes. In the arguments which feed the roots of Vs Debates this is easier to ignore - if you're ultimately arguing about metal cans shooting each other in space then you can pretend they could exist in the same world, that what they are is comparable. However, this is a pretense. We can see it shatter obviously in cases like, say, Mage the Ascension, where the entire debate hinges on which cosmology you're accepting, because mages are only limited to relatively (by Vs Debates standards) limited feats due to an actively hostile environment, or TypeMoon. Is the Death Star an A-rank mystery? Would a Space Marine landing in MtAsc Manhattan explode from paradox? The answer is asking there questions marks you as deeply deranged. Okay, but Batman is a human, right? Supposedly made out of atoms and whatever? Why can't we compare him to humans? Well, no. To sound utterly pedantic, he's a fictional character, not a human. If a human kicks a tree and it bursts apart, we can conclude 'holy shit I do not want to be kicked by them, they've got TNT thighs'. We live in a world ultimately dictated by the standard model and general relativity. It has rules. The force it takes to blow apart a tree and to cave in a man's chest are relatable. If Batman kicks a tree and it flies apart, and you flip the page thinking 'oh man, oh man batman is going to cave in a man's chest in his next fight' you'd be wrong, you fool, he's going to get held up by a bunch of untrained dudes in sweaters holding pipes. The tree is for aesthetic, for looks and metaphor and style. It's an RPG character getting an unopposed roll against a piece of scenery and the GM saying 'yeah, go for it, break apart that tree in your rage, i'm not giving you a bonus to your attack rolls in the next fight'. Now, granted, if you saw Batman get held up by a couple dudes with lead pipes and figured a squad of ten ninjas or Darkseid, evil alien god, would destroy him you'd also be wrong. This is why 'feats' and 'calcs' for Batman don't matter. They aren't predictive. The aesthetic is. Some stories have calcs which meet their aesthetic decently well - the Culture, for example - and so we can use the calcs as a lesser substitute, sometimes. Other stories, like Mage the Ascension, have feats so contextual that a Vs Debate always starts and is mostly decided by which aesthetic you're letting predominate. So what's the aesthetic of Batman against 160,000 nerds? Well, it's... nonsense. That's not a number even the most ambitious comic book writer would throw at him, just use a decently big crowd of a couple hundred, and it's such a bizarre set-up that being 'in-character' is actively confusing things. But if Batman did have to fight a big crowd, how would he do it? Probably not with his fists. If he was in an enclosed area and it wasn't 100,000+ he might punch them out, one or two at a time, ending with a panel of the bloody, bruised Caped Crusader limping out of the basement of some seedy nightclub only to collapse into the Batmobile, which drives him back to Wayne Manor. If it was a bit more open - like a theatre, huh wonder if we've seen that - he'd fight for a bit and find some trick to escape and possibly trap/disable them. If it was really open he'd grapple out or call in his Batmobile's Tesla Autopilot Mode for pickup. If it was maze-like he'd use stealth. But in a big open arena, against 100,000, it's not in Batman's aesthetic to fight them at all. Edit: If the question that comes to you after reading this is 'why are you in Vs Debates, then?' And the answer is I'm looking for a good story about who would win. Or a good joke about how. The problem is a six megajoule kick, in this thread, is a joke being treated like a story.

[eclipsellium]

Zoe // 16 // she/her/hers // INTJ

Currently studying physics, chemistry, computer science, calculus, photography. Topics in physics I’m learning about are E&M, thermodynamics, relativity, standard model, cosmology, high-energy astrophysics, and fluids.

I’m interested in dark matter and CMB research. My academic goals right now are mostly focused on getting into university with a major in physics. I want to get a PhD in either physics or astrophysics and work in academia doing cosmology research.

Other fun facts: I play golf and am training in calisthenics. I really like listening to music and I have a really cute cat (he’s a little chunky tho). My favorite show is Voltron Legendary Defender, and my favorite movie is a tie between Oppenheimer and The Social Network.

[frank-olivier]

From Symmetry to Mass: The Role of the Higgs Field in the Early Universe

The Higgs field is a fundamental field that exists throughout the universe. Unlike other fields, it is a scalar field, meaning it has a value at every point in space but no direction. This field is crucial for the mechanism that gives particles mass, In that it alters the intrinsic properties of particles. When particles interact with the Higgs field, they acquire mass through a process known as spontaneous symmetry breaking. Initially, all particles are massless in the early universe. As the universe cools, the Higgs field acquires a non-zero value everywhere, breaking the symmetry and causing certain particles to gain mass. The interaction with the Higgs field changes how particles "vibrate" or oscillate. This change in vibrational frequency is what we perceive as mass.

The Higgs boson is an excitation of the Higgs field. Its discovery at CERN's Large Hadron Collider in 2012 was a significant milestone because it provided direct evidence of the Higgs field's existence. The discovery of the Higgs boson confirmed the last missing piece of the Standard Model, which describes three of the four fundamental forces (excluding gravity) and classifies all known elementary particles. The Higgs mechanism explains how electromagnetic and weak nuclear forces unify into the electroweak force at high energies. This unification is crucial for understanding particle interactions at fundamental levels.

But the Standard Model does not account for dark matter or dark energy, prompting investigations into whether additional Higgs bosons or new particles might provide insights. Future collider experiments aim to study the Higgs boson's properties for deviations that could reveal new physics and address unresolved cosmological questions.

Professor Leonard Susskind explained the Higgs mechanism and its implications for future research in physics and cosmology.

Prof. Leonard Susskind: Demystifying the Higgs Boson (Stanford University, July 2012)

Monday, September 23, 2024

[usa-journal]

Scientists Puzzle Over Universe’s Mysterious Expansion Rate

In a groundbreaking analysis of data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and Hubble, scientists have uncovered new insights into the universe's accelerating expansion. The findings suggest that an unknown phenomenon—not an error in measurements—may be behind the discrepancy in the expansion rates, a mystery that has baffled researchers for decades.

The Hubble Tension Deepens The issue, known as the "Hubble tension," highlights a mismatch between observed and predicted rates of expansion. Measurements from both telescopes indicate the universe is expanding faster today than the "standard model of cosmology" predicts based on early-universe data from the cosmic microwave background.

While the standard model estimates a Hubble constant of about 67–68 km/s/Mpc, observations from JWST and Hubble suggest values between 70 and 76 km/s/Mpc, with an average of 73 km/s/Mpc. This significant gap cannot be reconciled with existing theories, leaving scientists with more questions than answers.

A New Opportunity to Understand the Cosmos “This discrepancy suggests that our understanding of the universe may be incomplete,” said Nobel laureate Adam Riess, the study's lead author. “With two flagship telescopes confirming these findings, we must take this problem seriously—it’s a challenge, but also an incredible opportunity to learn more.”

Riess and his team employed three different methods to verify the expansion rate, confirming the validity of the results but intensifying the mystery.

Could Black Holes Be the Key? While researchers like Riess focus on potential new physics, another recent study proposes a radical alternative: black holes may be driving the universe's expansion rather than dark energy.

Using data from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), scientists observed that the density of dark matter and black holes has increased over time. This contrasts with the long-held belief that dark energy—a mysterious force theorized to have driven the universe’s inflation—has been the dominant factor in cosmic acceleration.

The study’s authors suggest black holes might play a more significant role in shaping the universe than previously thought, potentially revolutionizing our understanding of both black holes and the cosmos.

What’s Next? As researchers delve deeper into these conflicting findings, the universe's accelerating expansion remains one of the most profound mysteries in modern astrophysics. Whether driven by black holes, dark energy, or an entirely unknown force, solving this enigma could transform the field and our grasp of the universe's origins and fate.