2023-09-14 17:15:50
A new study calls into question the standard expansion model of the universe.
The acceleration of the expansion of the universe would be interpreted as a geometric distortion effect linked to observers moving with the expansion. That is at least one of the main conclusions of the study carried out by Robert Monjo and Rutwig Campoamor-Stursberg, professors in the department of Algebra, Geometry and Topology at the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM) in Spain.
“Purely geometric observations such as the cosmic distance ladder show,” according to the authors of the new study, that “the expansion of the universe is not like that observed in the cosmic microwave background.” This difference, they explain, represents a statistical incompatibility known in cosmology as the “Hubble tension”, relative to the expansion parameter of the universe, whose name was coined in honor of the astronomer Edwin Hubble, who detailed the expansion rate a century ago.
The new study shows that, by applying analytical geometry to the movement of supernova stars, cosmic expansion behaves “as if it were linear, with a rate equal to the inverse of the age of the universe.” According to Monjo, the main author of the study, the observations collected in space missions in recent decades would be “distorted by the curved paths of light over expanding space”, causing an “apparent acceleration”.
To demonstrate their hypothesis, the authors of the study analyzed its compatibility with the standard theory, thus predicting an “apparent dark energy” of 70%, that is, “very similar to that supposedly observed in the cosmic microwave background.” The difference with the standard model would be that said figure would be constant, or in other words, it would always have the same value to fit with the linear expansion.
Artistic recreation of the concept of expansion of the universe. (Image: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab)
Monjo explains that there are other examples of fictitious acceleration that are well recognized by most, such as centrifugal acceleration, which we experience when we rotate in a vehicle, or Coriolis acceleration, observed in storms due to the rotation of the Earth. These effects, they state, “are typical of non-inertial observers, as is the case of non-rectilinear movements.” According to the study, the universe would be finite, expanding linearly at the speed of light, and closed by a radius of curvature equal to the age of the universe. With these ingredients, the authors of the study derive a fictitious acceleration comparable to that explained by dark energy. The key, they say, lies in “introducing the terms “span” and “shift” as additional contributions to the curvature, causing a radial inhomogeneity that behaves exactly the same as a fictitious acceleration in a homogeneously flat universe.”
But the discovery does not end there. For Monjo, dark matter would be “another unreal magnitude”, a consequence of the same fictitious acceleration that would affect the rotation of galaxies, “in the same way that the Coriolis effect partially drives the rotation of storms.” Currently, all indications and alternatives to dark matter are under deep review in the scientific community. If the findings of Monjo and Campoamor-Stursberg are confirmed, we would be facing a new era of modern cosmology.
The study is titled “Geometric perspective for explaining Hubble tension.” And it has been published in the academic journal Classical and Quantum Gravity. (Source: UCM)
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