Is the Universe Growing Thanks to Black Holes ? An Intriguing New Cosmic Hypothesis

© Evangeliena/Pixabay

Black holes, those cosmic giants long thought to be mere gravitational wells, may hold the key to the accelerated expansion of our universe. An international team of astrophysicists proposes a new hypothesis linking these celestial bodies to enigmatic dark energy, a hypothetical form of energy that uniformly fills our entire cosmos and accelerates its expansion. Their work was published in the journal Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics on October 28.

Black holes, unsuspected architects of cosmic expansion

Imagine a balloon that inflates faster and faster, without any more air being injected into it. This is precisely what intrigues scientists on the scale of our universe. According to known physical laws, its expansion should slow down under the effect of gravity. However, the opposite is happening. Even more surprising, this expansion is accelerating, defying established physics models that predicted its gradual slowdown.

Kevin Croker, an astrophysicist at Arizona State University, suggests that black holes are behind this astonishing phenomenon. “If black holes contain dark energy, they can couple to the expansion of the universe and grow with it, accelerating its growth. We cannot yet understand in detail how this happens, but we have evidence that it is happening ». Scientists do not yet fully understand what dark energy is, but it is known that it represents about 70% of the total energy in the Universe.

Black holes as matter converters

At the heart of this theory lies the concept of ” cosmological coupling “. Gregory Tarlé, a physicist at the University of Michigan, offers this analogy to help understand the phenomenon: Like a movie played in reverse, matter from a dying star that plunges into a black hole would be transformed into dark energy. “Perhaps cosmic inflation works in reverse: matter from a massive star transforms into dark energy as it collapses—like a Big Bang in reverse ” explains the researcher.

This hypothesis would explain another mystery: the ” missing matter ” of the Universe. Researchers have observed this phenomenon in dead galaxies, where supermassive black holes continue to grow even though they no longer swallow visible matter. It's as if these cosmic giants are creating their own fuel from the very fabric of space.

Compelling empirical evidence

The research team used the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (an instrument specifically designed to study dark energy) to analyze the formation of black holes from the collapse of massive stars. Duncan Farrah of the University of Hawaii points out the consistency of the observations: “As soon as new black holes formed when massive stars died, the amount of dark energy in the Universe increased logically. This makes the idea that black holes are the source of dark energy much more credible“.

The measurements made by the team of researchers seem to confirm this hypothesis. When astronomers do the math, they find that the amount of ordinary matter that seems to be missing from the universe matches perfectly with the amount of dark energy that appears. This mathematical correspondence is no mere coincidence. Black holes would act like gigantic cosmic factories: they swallow ordinary matter – stars, gas, dust – and transform it into dark energy by a process that remains unknown for the moment.

This new theory thus assigns a completely new role to black holes. If these hypotheses are confirmed by research conducted later, they could profoundly reshape our understanding of modern cosmology, by integrating black holes into the model of the evolution of the Universe. Until now, they were not considered to be direct contributors to cosmic expansion, but rather as celestial bodies influencing their immediate environment (galaxies, stars, etc.) through their extreme gravity and their ability to swallow matter and light.

• Black holes could contribute to the accelerated expansion of the Universe by producing dark energy.
• The matter absorbed by black holes would be transformed into dark energy, stimulating the growth of the Universe.
• If confirmed, this hypothesis would redefine the role of black holes in the cosmological model.

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