Scientists are exploring a potential link between black holes and dark energy, the mysterious force driving the universe’s accelerated expansion, Space.com reports.
New research suggests that black holes formed during “reverse Big Bang” events may hold the key to understanding dark energy, with findings that could reshape theories about the universe’s structure.
In recent studies, researchers theorize that black holes created from the gravitational collapse of massive stars might contain dark energy. This concept, known as “cosmological coupling,” suggests that black holes could be intertwined with the universe’s expansion and contribute to the acceleration of that expansion.
“This new development provides confirming evidence that cosmologically coupled black holes may very well be the dark energy of the universe,” said Gregory Tarlé, a physics professor at the University of Michigan.
Dark energy is a placeholder term for the unknown force that powers the universe’s accelerated expansion. While it is thought to make up approximately 70% of the universe’s energy, scientists still don’t fully understand its origin or behavior. Initially, gravity slowed down the universe’s expansion following the Big Bang, but dark energy emerged roughly 5 billion years ago, propelling the universe into its current accelerated phase.
The research team hypothesized that only in black holes—where gravity remains as strong as it was shortly after the Big Bang—can the formation of dark energy occur. They posit that black holes formed in cosmic events resembling “reverse Big Bangs” might contain dark energy that scales with the universe’s expansion. In such cases, matter in collapsing stars could theoretically convert into dark energy, a reversal of the processes that fueled the universe’s initial expansion.
To test this theory, the team analyzed data from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), which tracks galaxies and quasars up to 11 billion light-years away. DESI’s data revealed that dark energy density may be shifting, contradicting previous beliefs that it remains constant. This change aligns with the number of black holes formed throughout the cosmos, supporting the idea that black holes and dark energy could indeed be connected.
Tarlé’s team previously published research indicating that the universe’s expansion may directly influence supermassive black hole growth. If this growth pattern applies to all black holes, they could collectively account for the density of dark energy observed today. This latest study, which compared DESI’s data to the formation of black holes, found a correlation between the two, lending further support to the cosmological coupling theory.
One intriguing aspect of this theory is its potential to solve a long-standing issue in black hole science—the presence of a “singularity” at their center. Singularity, where space and time collapse into an infinitely dense point, has long defied physical explanation. The concept of dark energy within black holes could provide a mechanism to bypass singularities, which even Einstein doubted as a feature of the universe.
“Our theory has the added benefit of providing a mechanism where a central singularity may be avoided,” Tarlé said.
Future studies will seek to confirm this theory using additional DESI data and by examining the spatial distribution of cosmologically coupled black holes across the universe. Tarlé noted that this question is now “an experimental question” rather than purely theoretical, as scientists continue to test and refine the implications of cosmological coupling.
