Madrid. Through computer modeling, physicists discovered that the visible and dark sectors of the universe likely coevolved just after the Big Bang.
They understand that this new hypothesis has profound repercussions on the way the universe has developed since then.
Pran Nath, author of the new research and professor of physics at Northeastern University, said: 95 percent of the universe is dark, invisible to the eye. However, we know that it is there because of its gravitational pull on the stars.
, he added. Aside from its gravity, dark matter never seemed to have much effect on the visible cosmos.
But the relationship between these visible and invisible domains, especially when the universe formed, remains a question.
Nath considered that there was a time when some physicists discarded this hidden sector, since we can explain most of what happens within the visible; That is, if our models can accurately represent what we see happening around us, why bother trying to measure something that has no discernible effect?
The question is, what is the influence of the hidden sector on the visible one?
Nath asked in a statement. We can’t explain everything
says Nath. There are anomalies that do not seem to fit the so-called standard model
of the universe.
That the visible and hidden sectors are isolated is a misconception, said Nath, who is based on the assumption that the visible and hidden sectors evolved independently of each other
. The scientist wants to change that approach.
In an article published in Physical Review D, co-authored with his colleague Jinzheng Li, Nath proposes what he calls the most important question: how do we know they evolved independently?
To test this assumption, Nath and his team introduced some weak interactions
between the two sectors in their models of Big Bang. These few interactions would not be enough to affect the outcome of, say, experiments with particle accelerators, “but we wanted to see what the effects would be on the visible sector as a whole from the time of the Big Bang to the current time,” Nath said.
Even with minimal interactions between the two sectors, Nath and his team discovered that the influence of dark matter on the visible matter that we are made of could have a significant impact on observable phenomena.