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New type of dark energy could solve Universe expansion mystery

Hints of a previously unknown, primordial form of the substance could explain why the cosmos now seems to be expanding faster than theory predicts.
  1. Davide Castelvecchi
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Cosmologists have found signs that a second type of dark energy — the ubiquitous but enigmatic substance that is pushing the current Universe’s expansion to accelerate — might have existed in the first 300,000 years after the Big Bang.

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Nature 597, 460-461 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-02531-5

References

  1. Hill, J. C. et al. Preprint at https://arxiv.org/abs/2109.04451 (2021).

  2. Poulin, V., Smith, T. L. & Bartlett, A. Preprint at https://arxiv.org/abs/2109.06229 (2021).

  3. Di Valentino, E. et al. Class. Quantum Grav. 38, 153001 (2021).

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  4. Poulin, V., Smith, T. L., Karwal, T. & Kamionkowski, M. Phys. Rev. Lett. 122, 221301 (2019).

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