Over the years, many different models of the universe have been developed that tried to answer some of the great mysteries of the cosmos and explain all the phenomena that manifest themselves in it in a logical and rational way. Albert Einstein proposed a cyclical model according to which the universe would expand and contract, leading to the death and birth of an infinite number of universes. Now, a team of researchers from the University of Uppsala (Sweden) propose a new model that seems to explain the concept of dark energy and, therefore, the accelerated expansion of the cosmos.
Since 1998 it has been known that the universe expands in an accelerated and non-constant way, increasing the speed as the distance increases following the Hubble constant. This phenomenon could only be explained with dark energy, a form of energy that would not interact with any type of matter or forces except by opposing gravity and that forms 68.3% of everything that exists in the universe. Being homogeneously distributed throughout the universe and remaining constant, dark energy would be the main cause of the acceleration suffered by the universe as it expands .
The model proposed by Uppsala’s team, who has published their work in Physical Review Letters , relies on a new approach from string theory to explain expansion. According to the new structural approach, our universe would be “mounted” on an expanding bubble , placed on the edge or surface of this bubble whose growth would take place in an extra dimension . All the matter of the universe would correspond to the ends of the strings that extend towards the extra dimension and the dark energy would only be the manifestation of the expansive nature of that bubble . The researchers support that these types of bubbles could exist within the framework of string theory itself and that the bubble in which our universe is located could not be the only one , but that there are other bubble universes that would form the so-called multiverse.
String theory, the solution to all our problems
Since its first observation thanks to the Supernova Cosmology Project , dark energy has been one of the most elusive concepts in physics today . Searching for a satisfactory explanation, the world’s scientists had pinned their hopes on the well-known string theory. According to this, all the existing matter in the universe is formed by small entities that vibrate similar to strings that would need more spatial dimensions in addition to the three already existing ones. Although numerous models based on string theory have been developed in recent years that sought to explain dark energy, they have been discarded and criticized for not being considered viable.
The research of Souvik Banerjee, Ulf Danielsson, Giuseppe Dibitetto, Suvendu Giri and Marjorie Schillo proposes a new point of view that allows a different approach to the creation and future of the universe that, according to the two main currents, could lead to the Dark energy overcomes any other attractive force and ends up annihilating the atoms and destroying the universe ( Big Rip ) or that it dissipates and causes a superconcentration of matter that leads to another Big Bang ( Big Crunch ). Furthermore, the team believes that their new model “could pave the way for string theory test methods .”
Reference: Souvik Banerjee, Ulf Danielsson, Giuseppe Dibitetto, Suvendu Giri & Marjorie Schillo: ‘Emergent de Sitter Cosmology from Decaying Anti – de Sitter Space’. Physical Review Letters (2018). DOI: 10.1103 / PhysRevLett.121.261301.
