NASA-Wissenschaftler erforschen dunkle Energie – Zeit, die Gravitationstheorie von Albert Einstein zu überarbeiten?

Veranschauliche dunkle Energie. Bildnachweis: Visualisierung von Frank Summers, Space Telescope Science Institute. Simulation von Martin White, UC Berkeley und Lars Hernquist, Harvard University

Lässt sich eines der größten Rätsel der Astrophysik lösen, indem man Albert Einsteins Gravitationstheorie umschreibt? Noch nicht, laut einer neuen Studie, die er mitverfasst hat[{“ attribute=““>NASA scientists.

The universe is expanding at an accelerating rate, and physicists don’t know why. This phenomenon seems to contradict everything scientists understand about gravity’s effect on the cosmos: It’s as if you threw an apple in the air and instead of coming back down, it continued upward, faster and faster. The cause of the cosmic acceleration, dubbed dark energy, remains a mystery.

A new study marks the latest effort to determine whether this is all simply a misunderstanding: that expectations for how gravity works at the scale of the entire universe are flawed or incomplete. This potential misunderstanding might help researchers explain dark energy. However, the study – one of the most precise tests yet of Albert Einstein’s theory of gravity at cosmic scales – finds that the current understanding still appears to be correct. The study was from the international Dark Energy Survey, using the Victor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope in Chile.

The results, authored by a group of scientists that includes some from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), were presented Wednesday, August 24, at the International Conference on Particle Physics and Cosmology (COSMO’22) in Rio de Janeiro. The work helps set the stage for two upcoming space telescopes that will probe our understanding of gravity with even higher precision than the new study and perhaps finally solve the mystery.

This image – the first released from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope – shows the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723. Some of the galaxies appear smeared or stretched due to a phenomenon called gravitational lensing. This effect can help scientists map the presence of dark matter in the universe. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

More than a century ago, Albert Einstein developed his Theory of General Relativity to describe gravity. Thus far it has accurately predicted everything from the orbit of Mercury to the existence of black holes. But some scientists have argued that if this theory can’t explain dark energy, then maybe they need to modify some of its equations or add new components.

To find out if that’s the case, members of the Dark Energy Survey looked for evidence that gravity’s strength has varied throughout the universe’s history or over cosmic distances. A positive finding would indicate that Einstein’s theory is incomplete, which might help explain the universe’s accelerating expansion. They also examined data from other telescopes in addition to Blanco, including the ESA (European Space Agency) Planck satellite, and reached the same conclusion.

Einstein’s theory still works, according to the study. So no there’s no explanation for dark energy yet. However, this research will feed into two upcoming missions: ESA’s Euclid mission, slated for launch no earlier than 2023, which has contributions from NASA; and NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, targeted for launch no later than May 2027. Both telescopes will search for changes in the strength of gravity over time or distance.

Blurred Vision

How do scientists know what happened in the universe’s past? By looking at distant objects. A light-year is a measure of the distance light can travel in a year (about 6 trillion miles, or about 9.5 trillion kilometers). That means an object one light-year away appears to us as it was one year ago, when the light first left the object. And galaxies billions of light-years away appear to us as they did billions of years ago. The new study looked at galaxies stretching back about 5 billion years in the past. Euclid will peer 8 billion years into the past, and Roman will look back 11 billion years.

The galaxies themselves don’t reveal the strength of gravity, but how they look when viewed from Earth does. Most matter in our universe is dark matter, which does not emit, reflect, or otherwise interact with light. While physicists don’t know what it’s made of, they know it’s there, because its gravity gives it away: Large reservoirs of dark matter in our universe warp space itself. As light travels through space, it encounters these portions of warped space, causing images of distant galaxies to appear curved or smeared. This was on display in one of first images released from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.

Dieses Video erklärt ein Phänomen namens Gravitationslinseneffekt, das dazu führen kann, dass Bilder von Galaxien verzerrt oder verschwommen erscheinen. Diese Verzerrung wird durch die Schwerkraft verursacht, und Wissenschaftler können den Effekt nutzen, um dunkle Materie zu erkennen, die kein Licht emittiert oder reflektiert. Bildnachweis: Goddard Space Flight Center der NASA

Wissenschaftler des Dark Energy Survey untersuchen Bilder von Galaxien auf subtilere Verzerrungen aufgrund dunkler Materie, die den Raum krümmt, ein Effekt, der als schwach bezeichnet wird Gravitationslinse. Die Schwerkraft bestimmt die Größe und Verteilung von Strukturen der Dunklen Materie, und die Größe und Verteilung wiederum bestimmen, wie verzerrt diese Galaxien für uns aussehen. Auf diese Weise können Bilder die Schwerkraft in verschiedenen Entfernungen von der Erde und zu fernen Zeiten im Laufe der Geschichte des Universums zeigen. Die Gruppe hat inzwischen die Formen von mehr als 100 Millionen Galaxien gemessen, und bisher stimmen die Beobachtungen mit den Vorhersagen von Einsteins Theorie überein.

„Es gibt immer noch Raum, Einsteins Gravitationstheorie in Frage zu stellen, da die Messungen genauer werden“, sagte die Co-Autorin der Studie, Agnes Ferti, die die Forschung als Postdoktorandin am JPL durchführte. „Aber wir haben noch viel zu tun, bevor wir für Euklid und Roman bereit sind. Daher ist es unerlässlich, dass wir weiterhin mit Wissenschaftlern auf der ganzen Welt an diesem Problem zusammenarbeiten, wie wir es bei der Dunkelenergie-Umfrage getan haben.“

Referenz: „Results of the Third Year Dark Energy Survey: Extension Constraints for ΛCDM with Weak Lenses and Galactic Clusters“ Von DES Collaboration: TMC Abbott, M. Aguena, A. Alarcon, O. Alves, A. Amon, J. Annis, S . Avila, D. Bacon, E. Baxter, K. Bechtol, M. R. Becker, G. M. Bernstein, S. Birrer, J. Blazek, S. Bocquet, A. Brandao-Souza, S. L. Bridle, D. Brooks, D. L. Burke, H. Camacho, a. Campos, A.; Carneiro-Roussell, M. Carrasco-Kinde, J. Carretero, F. J. Castander, R. Cawthon, C. Chang, A. Chen, R. Chen, A. Choi, C. Consullis, J. Cordero, M. Costanzi, M. Crocce, LN da Costa, MES Pereira, C. Davis, T. M. Davis, J. DeRose, S. Desai, E. Di Valentino, H. T. Diehl, S. Dodelson, P. Doel, C. Doux, A. Drlica-Wagner, K. Eckert, T. F. Eifler, F. Elsner, J. Elvin-Poole, S. Everett, X. Fang, A. Farahi, I. Ferrero, A. Ferté, B. Flaugher , P Fosalba, D. Friedel, O. Friedrich, J. Frieman, J. García-Bellido, M. Gatti, L. Giani, T. Giannantonio, G. Giannini, D. Gruen, R. R. Gruendl, J. Gschwend, G. Gutierrez , N. Hammos, I. Harrison, W. G. Hartley, K. Herner, SR Hinton, DL; Honshed, H. Huang, M. Hof, de Hutterer, B. Jane, D. J. James, M. Jarvis, N. Jeffrey, T. Geltima, A. Kovacs, Cross, K. Cohn, N.; Kuropatkin, O. Lahav, S.; Lee, P.-F. Leggett, B. Lemus, CD Leonard, AR Liddell, M. Lima, H. Lynn, N. McCran, J. L. Marshall, J. McCullough, J. Mina Fernandez, F. Minanto, R. Mikel, V. Miranda, J. J. Mohr, J. Muir, J. Miles, S. Nadthor, A. Navarro-Alsina, RC Nicoll, RLC Uganda, Y. Aomori, A. Palmis, S Pandey, Y Park, M Paterno, F Paz-Chinchon, WG Percival, A Perez, AA Plazas Malagon, A Buridon, J Pratt, M ​​​​Raveri, M Rodriguez-Monroy, B Rogozinski, RP Rollins, AK Romer Rodman, A. R. Rosenfeld, A. J. Ross, A. Rykoff und S. Rodman. Samorov, C. Sanchez, E. Sanchez, J. Sanchez und Dr. , M. Smith, M. Soares-Santos, E. Suchyta, M. Tabbutt, G. Tarle, D. Thomas, C. To, A. Troja, M. A. Troxel, I. Tutusaus, T. N. Varga, M. Vincenzi, AR Walker, N. Weverdick, R. H. Wechler, J. Wheeler, P. Yanni, P. Yin, Y. Zhang und J. Zontz, 12. Juli 2022, hier verfügbar. Astrophysik > Kosmologie und nichtgalaktische Astrophysik.
arXiv: 2207.05766