Could Something Missing in the Universe be Revealed by Ripples in Spacetime?
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Could something missing in the universe be revealed by ripples in spacetime?:
Every strange and fascinating thing out there is supposed to belong in the universe. So what has gone unseen? New research suggests that gravitational waves could help figure out more about the mysterious dark energy thought to be lurking in the void. It is possible that gravitational waves-ripples in spacetime-could illuminate dark energy. These ripples encounter supermassive black holes or enormous galaxies as they traverse space.
Because it has been proven that gravitational waves [...] are bent when they pass through or near these objects, dark energy might also have an effect on them.
Gravitational waves can be used [to] probe the nature of dark energy," Jose Maria Ezquiaga, who coauthored a paper recently published in Physical Review Letters, told SYFY WIRE. If the dark energy is in its essence a modification of gravity, this will affect the way in which the gravitational waves propagate. This is in some sense similar to the use of light to probe the nature of some material. In other words, gravitational waves can be used as probes of the components of the universe.
Dark energy is allegedly behind the universe's expansion, but the problem is that its origin remains unknown. There are scientists who do not even think it exists. If it really is dark energy that is causing the accelerated expansion of the universe, gravitational waves, which emerge from black holes and neutron stars colliding, may tell us something as they trek through the darkness. If, as Ezquiaga said, dark energy is a strange way that gravity can be modified, it should affect gravitational waves.
[...] If gravity is modified, then these modifications are a good place to look," Ezquiaga said. If a gravitational wave crosses these mediums, it can generate waves associated with the additional components of gravity. In many theories these are scalar waves, which differ from the gravitational waves in their polarization properties."
Journal Reference:
Jose Maria Ezquiaga, Miguel Zumalacarregui. Gravitational wave lensing beyond general relativity: Birefringence, echoes, and shadows [open], Physical Review D (DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.102.124048)
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