Scientists discovered that modern black holes were significantly larger in size than they had been nine billion years ago. Trying to explain the scale of this anomaly, astrophysicists have discovered an explanation for this phenomenon in dark energy — a mysterious force that causes the Universe to expand with acceleration. Scientists suspect that black holes may be the source of dark energy.
Dark energy remains one of the biggest mysteries of modern physics. A lot of effort has been made to answer this extremely difficult question. Anyone who explains this worldwide riddle is guaranteed a Nobel Prize. There are many hypotheses, but none have been widely accepted. Therefore, scientists from nine countries have joined forces to try to somehow find out the mysterious power of the Universe.
Dark energy and the rapid growth of black holes
The key obstacle to understanding the nature of dark energy can be summed up by one question: if there is a force expanding the Universe, why do we see how gravity attracts objects? The only thing we know about dark energy is that it dominates only on a very large scale. Supermassive black holes are an interesting example here. These monsters of the Universe absorb matter around them from such great distances that one can notice the transition between the dominance of gravity and dark energy.
It should be noted that the growth of black holes is very slow and unstable. However, by comparing the mass of distant black holes, as they were billions of years ago, with those surrounding us in neighboring galaxies, we could get an idea of their average growth rates. The team found that nearby black holes were, on average, 7 to 20 times the mass of those that existed nine billion years ago. Such a growth rate does not correspond to what scientists know about the rate of absorption of matter by them, and their gradual evaporation due to Hawking radiation should also be taken into account.
If we assume that black holes are somehow connected with dark energy, this may explain their accelerated growth. But according to the authors of the study, if supermassive black holes in the center of galaxies produce dark energy, then they are responsible for only a small part of its total volume in the Universe.
Earlier we reported on how scientists had been trying to capture gravitational waves since the Big Bang.
According to The Astrophysical Journal
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