Key Points
- MIT researchers propose that early dark energy, which briefly accelerated the universe’s expansion, may explain two major cosmological puzzles.
- Early dark energy could resolve conflicting measurements of the universe’s expansion rate.
- The study also links the dark energy to the unexpectedly high number of bright galaxies seen by JWST in the early universe.
- Early dark energy may have accelerated the formation of dark matter halos, boosting galaxy formation.
A new study by MIT physicists suggests that a mysterious force called early dark energy could resolve two of cosmology’s biggest puzzles: the “Hubble tension” and the unexpectedly high number of bright galaxies observed in the early universe.
The Hubble tension refers to conflicting measurements of the universe’s expansion rate. At the same time, recent observations by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) revealed numerous large galaxies that appeared far earlier than models predicted.
Early dark energy is a hypothetical form of energy that may have existed briefly in the universe’s infancy, accelerating its expansion before disappearing. While this phenomenon has been proposed to explain the Hubble tension, the MIT team found it could also account for the abundance of early bright galaxies.
By modeling galaxy formation in the universe’s first few hundred million years, the researchers discovered that early dark energy could have influenced the formation of dark matter halos — regions where matter gathers, leading to galaxy formation.
The study suggests that early dark energy may have subtly altered the early universe, increasing the size and brightness of galaxies at a faster rate than current models suggest. If further observational evidence from JWST supports these findings, the dark energy could provide a unified solution to these cosmological puzzles.
The research was conducted by MIT physicists Rohan Naidu, Xuejian Shen, and Mark Vogelsberger, along with collaborators from the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Cambridge. The study was published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
