Researchers at Durham and collaborators in the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) mission have proposed a bold new theory that black holes could be converting matter into dark energy.
The international team of researchers have combined DESI data with observations of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) to provide a new way of understanding the components of our universe.
Cosmic observations
In the new model, stars collapsing into black holes trigger a process that gradually transforms infalling matter into dark energy.
This transformation tracks the cosmic star formation rate, allowing the model to naturally evolve over time and match both early- and late-universe observations.
The new study follows recent findings by DESI which suggest that dark energy's influence on the universe - long believed to be constant in time - is actually changing.
It proposes that black holes may be the engines behind the universe's mysterious dark energy - while also shedding new light on the mass of elusive fundamental particles known as neutrinos.
Scientists know these fundamental particles (neutrinos) have masses that are greater than zero and so contribute to the amount of matter in the universe.
However, because they are so difficult to detect, the exact value of their mass has yet to be measured making these the only known particles whose mass is unknown.
Modelling the universe
Researchers discovered that interpreting DESI data within the standard model of the Universe - where dark energy is constant - results in a matter budget that is too small. This leads to the unphysical conclusion of requiring negative neutrino masses, leaving no room for neutrinos.
Scientists from Durham's Institute for Computational Cosmology, led by Dr Willem Elbers, proposed in a paper last year that the evolution of dark energy could be responsible for the apparent mismatch in the neutrino masses.
This new study presents a concrete model that brings the neutrino mass back into a positive value, in agreement with known physics.
An international experiment
DESI is an international experiment that brings together more than 900 researchers from over 70 institutions.
The five-year DESI mission, managed by the United States' Department of Energy through the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, aims to map the large-scale structure of our universe over an enormous volume and a wide range of cosmic epochs.
Durham's involvement includes experts from the Durham's Institute for Computational Cosmology, Centre for Advanced Instrumentation and Centre for Extragalactic Astronomy.
These new findings, led by the University of Michigan, have been published in the Physical Review Letters.
These discoveries could significantly reshape our understanding of how the universe has evolved over time.
