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An illustration of two black holes. | Credit: ESA
Cosmologists have been fighting with the “Hubble tension”, a disagreement between the measurements of today’s expansion rate of the universe for years. A promising solution to this situation is the loss of mass when black holes merge. However, new research indicates that this probably does not work, so that the secret remains.
In 2022, astronomers noticed something strange with the measurements of the Hubble constantThe measurement unit used to describe the universe’s expansion rate. Values of the constant that are derived from observations of the early universe, like the Cosmic microwave backgroundwere significantly lower than in the nearby modern universe.
Over the years, this discrepancy has only deepened, and cosmologists have searched in vain for an explanation.
Cosmological models assume that the amount of matter in the universe remains constant. One way to relieve the voltage is that the matter in the universe somehow disappears. Several theories have proposed that dark matter can fall into an invisible form of radiation. However, we do not understand what dark matter is primarily, so these ideas remain firmly hypothetical.
However, there is a known path to destroy the matter: Black holes. It is not in the formation of black holes itself. Matter that falls under one Event horizon still exists; It is only concluded from the point of view. But when black holes merge, they convert an enormous amount of mass into pure energy, in the form of Gravitational waves. A typical merger of two small black holes ensures the energy worth several suns.
These gravitational waves escape into the universe. The mass that she has created no longer exists. We can do gravitational waves directly with instruments such as measuring Laser interferometer gravitational wave observatory And indirectly see their influence through Pulsar -Timing arrays. So this is a well -known, proven method to destroy matter in the universe.
But is it enough to take the Hubble tension into account? A team of astrophysicists at Vanderbilt University recently worked to answer this question.
They found that black holes had to merge at an unrealistic speed to explain enough matter to explain the Hubble tension. We can appreciate the real merger rate of the number of massive stars generated in the universe, how often they die and transform into black holes, and how efficiently they encounter each other.
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The actual number of mergers of the black hole is about 10,000 times smaller than the number required to explain the Hubble tension. Even if they make up considerable uncertainties when estimating the merger rate of the black hole, it is far from enough, the researchers reported in A Paper Transfer to the Preprint database Arxiv.
While the results that have not yet been checked by experts do not alleviate the Hubble tension, they still represent an important step. If scientists are confronted with a secret, the big or small, they have to examine every possibility and turn every stone over like cosmic detectives. Only through slow, persistent, careful work will we find the answers to our most difficult secrets.
