Potential source of dark energy found inside black holes

An international team of astrophysicists has studied how black holes change over time. Analysis results

have shown that they grow much more thanexpected. This discovery suggests that as black holes grow, they absorb vacuum energy and could serve as a source of dark energy for the expansion of the Universe.

Scientists analyzed nine billion years of evolutionsupermassive black holes. In their study, they compared distant giant elliptical galaxies that formed at the dawn of the evolution of the Universe and are observed in the early stages of development, and local counterparts - old and dead.

The comparison showed much more thangrowth was predicted to be due to accretion or mergers: the mass of modern black holes is 7–20 times greater than that observed nine billion years ago. After the completion of star formation, the galaxies go into a "sleeping" phase. They leave little material for a black hole to collect, meaning that any further growth cannot be explained by normal astrophysical processes, the authors explain.

Comparison with similar galaxies locatedat different distances, and hence at different stages of the development of the Universe, showed a correspondence between the size of the Universe and the mass of black holes. The researchers believe that the amount of dark energy in the universe can be explained by the vacuum energy inside black holes.

This is the first observable evidence that black holes actually contain vacuum energy and that they are "linked" to the expansion of the universe.

This is truly an amazing result. We started by studying how black holes grow over time and may have found the answer to one of the biggest problems in cosmology.

Dave Clements, astrophysicist at Imperial College London and study co-author

At the end of the last century, scientists found thatThe universe is expanding at an accelerating rate. This observation contradicted the general theory of relativity: the gravitational attraction between all objects in the Universe should have slowed down the expansion.

To explain the discrepancy between theory andobservation, scientists proposed the concept of dark energy - a hypothetical energy that counteracts gravitational forces. If the discovery is confirmed, the vacuum energy in black holes could help close a gap in cosmological theory.

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On the cover: artistic illustration of a black hole