Dark energy, the mysterious substance which is accelerating, according to scientists, the expansion of the Universe, really exists. So says a team of astronomers from Portsmouth (England) and Munich universities.


After a two-year study, led by Tommaso Giannantonio (Tommaso Giannantonio) and Robert Crittenden (Robert Crittenden), scientists have concluded that the probability of the existence of dark energy is 99,996%.

Prof. Bob Nikol (Bob Nichol, a member of Portsmouth team, said: "Dark energy is one of the great mysteries of Nature today, it is not surprising that so many researchers to question its existence. However, our new job gives us the confidence that this exotic component of the Universe is real, even if we have no idea what it is".

About 10 years ago, astronomers observing the brightness remote supernova, realized that the expansion of the Universe is accelerated. The acceleration is due to the forces of repulsion, which is associated with a dark energy component, the assumptions, 73% of the Universe. Researchers who made this discovery, was awarded the Nobel prize in 2011, but the existence of dark energy remained on top of the debate.

Many other methods were used to confirm the reality of dark energy, but they were based on indirect research acceleration extensions or their results were within the measurement errors. Clear data about dark energy came with the discovery of the integrated effect Sachs-Wolfe (Integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect, Rainer Sachs and Arthur Wolfe).

If the Universe was dominated by cold (i.e. non-relativistic) matter, due to its heterogeneity perturbations of the gravitational potential on a large scale would not change significantly during the passage of photons. If the Universe is dominated by relativistic matter (for example, photons) or dark energy, the spatial distribution of the potential rapidly changes and slightly alter the energy passing through it photons of the CMB.

In 1996 Robert Crittenden (Robert Crittenden) and the Nile Turok (Neil Turok) developed this idea to the next level, assuming that astronomers could search for these small changes of photon energy, comparing the temperature of the radiation maps of galaxies near the Universe.

Integrated effect Sachs-Wolfe was first detected in 2003, and immediately was seen as confirmation of the existence of dark energy. But the signal was too weak to confirm the expected level of correlation between the cards. This gave a number of scientists assume that it was caused by other sources, such as dust in our Galaxy. Since publication of the first article on the topic of integrated effect Sachs-Wolfe, some astronomers have questioned the initial discovery of the effect and, therefore, was very strong at that time, proof of the existence of dark energy in question.

In the new paper, the result of almost two years of work, the team again studied all the arguments against detection integrated effect Sachs-Wolfe, and improved maps near the Universe, used in the original work. After careful analysis, they concluded that the probability 99,996% dark energy responsible for more hot part of the cards background radiation.

"This work also speaks about the possible modifications of the General theory of relativity, said Tomasi Giannantonio. - The next release of galactic surveys and background radiation will be required to give critical dimension, either confirming the GRT, including dark energy, or, what is even more intriguing, requiring a completely new understanding of how gravity works.

Visually displaying data used in the study. Appropriate extragalactic maps are presented as shell increasing distances from the Earth, from left to right. Nearest visible object - our Galaxy, which is a potential source of noise in the analysis. After that, there are six shells containing maps million distant galaxies included in the study. These cards are using various telescopes at different wavelengths and encode color to show more dense clusters of galaxies (red) and less dense areas (blue). In the cards have holes, lack of appropriate data quality. Finally, most shell shows the temperature of the background radiation, received from the satellite WMAP (Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe) (red - hot, blue - colder). The team identified (with the importance of 99,996%) very low correlation between the cards foreground (left) and background radiation (right)

Leonid Barash