Researcher proposes model replacing dark energy/matter to explain universe

Summary

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Dr. Richard Lieu, a physics professor at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), a part of The University of Alabama System, has published a paper in the journal Classical and Quantum Gravity that proposes a universe built on steps of multiple singularities rather than the Big Bang alone to account for the expansion of the cosmos. The new model forgoes the need for either dark matter or dark energy as explanations for the universe's acceleration and how structures like galaxies are generated. The researcher's work builds on an earlier model hypothesizing that gravity can exist without mass. "This new paper proposes an improved version of the earlier model, which is also radically different," Lieu explains. "The new model can account for both structure formation and stability, and the key observational properties of the expansion of the universe at large, by enlisting density singularities in time that uniformly affect all space to replace conventional dark matter and dark energy." Lieu's improved model doesn't rely on exotic phenomena like "negative mass" or "negative density" to work. The theory offers instead the notion that the universe is expanding due to a series of step-like bursts called "transient temporal singularities" that flood the entire cosmos with matter and energy, yet happen so rapidly, they cannot be observed as these singularities wink in and out of existence. "Sir Fred Hoyle opposed Big Bang cosmology and postulated a 'steady state' model of the universe in which matter and energy were constantly being created as the universe expands," Lieu notes. "But that hypothesis violates the law of mass-energy conservation. "In the current theory, the conjecture is for matter and energy to appear and disappear in sudden bursts and, interestingly enough, there is no violation of conservation laws. These singularities are unobservable because they occur rarely in time and are unresolvedly fast, and that could be the re...