Proposal for dark energy potentially being the theorized “Exotic matter”
As we know, and as I have explained in a previous blog post of mine, dark energy is widely speculated to be responsible for the growing expansion of our universe, but what if it was something way more than just an “energy responsible for expanding our universe”?
To start, we need to back up a bit to July 4th 2012 where scientists discovered something called the Higgs boson, using the Large Hadron Collider particle accelerator. To briefly explain it and why it was, and is such a big deal to our understanding of the universe, the Higgs boson was theorized by Peter Higgs to be one of the elementary particles in the group “force carriers” in our standard model of elementary particles. As also theorized by Peter Higgs, the particle emits a field called the Higgs field, which is responsible for slowing down, and “giving mass” to particles travelling through it, think of it as a magnet emitting a magnetic field that has an affect on ferromagnetic metals after a certain distance threshold. So you might already see from that as to why it’s such an incredibly important elementary particle, and why searching for it, and then finding it were such big deals.
You might ask, if the Higgs field is seemingly around us everywhere, why did it take 40 years for us to discover the actual particle itself? Well that’s because yes, the Higgs field is everywhere around us, however, you need enough energy to excite the Higgs field to the point where it manifests into the Higgs boson particle, an amount of energy which is FAR greater than whatever is encountered in every day space 99% of the time, and definitely not on Earth, and even then it is present for an incredibly brief amount of time before decaying into other particles that are more stable. Until we built the Large Hadron Collider that is.
And now that you know that particles can emit fields across the fabric of spacetime let us go back to the original point and title of this blog post. To also briefly summarize dark energy, in 1997 the Hubble Space Telescope discovered that the expansion of space appeared to be accelerating, not slowing down, bringing back the theory of a “negative pressure field”, similar to that of dark energy, being responsible for driving cosmic expansion. A theory which was proposed by Alan Guth and Alexei Starobinsky in 1980. You may have seen an illustration of how planets, stars, everything affect the fabric of spacetime, via a blanket that’s pulled out in the air, and then spherical objects as planets laid on top of it, demonstrating how they curve and “pull down” the fabric of spacetime around them for quite a distance, now for dark energy, imagine getting rid of that sphere on the blanket, going under it, and then pushing your fist up and into the blanket from below, and that is roughly the effect dark energy has on the fabric of spacetime.
Now my proposal, is what if dark energy is a field that is emitted by an as-of-yet undetected particle? There are a few theories in theoretical physics, hypothesizing about a form of matter with inverse properties potentially being able to exist, called “Exotic matter”, and the effects it has on spacetime are identical to that of dark energy, inverse properties. And it is also speculated that such matter can be used to keep wormholes open and stable, but that’s a topic for another day. What if dark energy is an energy field that permeates the universe, that is emitted exactly by that exotic matter? Exactly like my previously mentioned Higgs field and Higgs boson example.
What if you take enough of that dark energy, you somehow gather it together into one place, or perhaps use an immense amount of energy to excite a section of spacetime to the point where the field manifests into exotic matter? Doing that enough and gathering enough of the resulting exotic matter could perhaps tear open the very fabric of spacetime itself, allowing for wormholes to be possible.
The total mass–energy content of the universe contains 5% ordinary matter, 26.8% dark matter, and 68.2% of a form of energy known as dark energy. That 5% of ordinary matter is EVERYTHING we can see, you, me, the rocks on this planet, this planet itself, EVERYTHING out there that is observable. Such an insane and seemingly rich universe of teeming stars, planets, black holes, etc. only makes up a measly 5% of the contents and energy of this universe. And here is a theory within a theory, let us briefly explore dark matter.
Believe it or not, supermassive black holes in the centers of galaxies are by themselves not enough to form galaxies and hold them together, a majority of that effort is actually carried by an also as-of-yet undetected form of MATTER called dark matter (completely different from dark energy, despite their similar names), which is widely theorized to be collected around galaxies, which holds them together. But why only around galaxies? What if another potential source of that dark matter is my hypothesized exotic matter? Which forms as a result of the incredibly high force exerted onto the fabric of spacetime and thus the dark energy field by the mass of the whole galaxy itself, or perhaps the supermassive black hole in the center of it, or perhaps other incredibly high energy events happening in the galaxy like supernovae, neutron star collisions, black hole mergers, etc. etc. which then very briefly forms exotic matter, however it decays incredibly quickly into for example dark matter, and whatever else. That would explain why dark matter seemingly favors to hang around galaxies. To also quickly clarify any confusion you might have of dark energy and dark matter, as previously mentioned in parentheses, they are two entirely different things, scientists are just bad at naming things and refer to them both as “dark” only because we currently have no way of detecting them or observing them directly, only theories. Dark matter is an undetected matter that exerts the same force and manipulation on spacetime as stars, planets, and such made of ordinary matter. Dark energy is an energy field that has the exact opposite properties and effects on the fabric of spacetime as discussed.
And I think that’s it, so in conclusion, space and theoretical physics are whack but very fun too, and what if dark energy is an energy field emitted by exotic matter? Which may or may not also decay into dark matter whenever it does have the very brief chance of forming. I hope this article was as fun to read as it was for me to write! As you noticed, this is also my first blog post where I experimented with embedding media, like the above image of the standard model of elementary particles, I will continue to do that for all of my future blog posts.
