The age of the universe confirms Einstein’s theory of relativity

The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) reveals data on the theory of relativity of the Universe

New study based on data Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI)traced the growth of this cosmic structure over the past 11 billion years. This work revealed that gravity, in a subtle sense, formed the Cosmos as we know it. This study also involves Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands (IAC).

Desi

Desi This is an international cooperation in which more than 900 researchers from more than 70 institutions around the world. The project is managed by the company Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory And US Department of Energy.

DESI researchers confirmed that gravity behaves as predicted by Einstein’s general theory of relativity.. Moreover, this result limits the possible theories of modified gravity proposed as an alternative to explain the unexpected observations. This includes the accelerated expansion of our Universe, which is often attributed to dark energy.

Polina Zarroukcosmologist National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) from France explains that “General relativity is very well proven at the scale of planetary systems. However, we also needed to prove that our hypothesis works on a much larger scale.”

Zarrouk which also works in Laboratory of Nuclear and High Energy Physics (VBLHEP)

and is one of the leaders of the new analysis, explains that “studying the rate of galaxy formation allows us to directly test our theories, and for now we agree on what General Relativity predicts on cosmological scales.”

The study also provides new upper limits on neutrino mass: These are the only fundamental particles whose masses have not yet been accurately measured. Previous experiments with neutrinos showed that the sum of the masses of the three types of neutrinos should be at least 0.059 eV/s2. An electron has a mass about ten thousand times greater. The DESI results indicate that the sum should be less than 0.071 eV/s2, leaving a narrow range of neutrino masses.

11 billion years ago in time

Cooperation Desi shared his results in several papers published in the online repository arXiv. For research almost six million galaxies and quasars that allowed us to peer back 11 billion years. With just one year of data, DESI has made the most precise global measurement of the growth of structures in the Universe, surpassing all previous efforts that took decades to complete.

The results represent an extended analysis of the first year of data from DESI, which was released in April by the largest 3D map of our universe to date and have revealed signs that dark energy may be evolving over time. The April results focused on a special feature of galaxy clusters known as baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO, English abbreviation).

A new analysis called “full analysis” expands the ability to extract more information from data by measuring how galaxies and matter are distributed in space at different scales.

The study required months of additional work and extensive testing. As in the previous study, a technique was used to conceal the result from the participating scientists to mitigate any unconscious bias.

Teacher University of Michigan and group co-leader Desi

which interprets cosmological data, Dragan Hutererstated that “both our BAO results and full shape analysis are impressive.”

Huterer also claimed that “this is the first time DESI has analyzed the growth of a cosmic structure. We demonstrate an exciting new ability to explore modified gravity and improve the constraints of dark energy models. And this is just the tip of the iceberg,” says Huterer.

Gravity behaves as predicted by Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity.

DESI is a state-of-the-art instrument that can simultaneously capture light from up to 5,000 objects. It was built and operated with funding from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science. DESI is installed on the US National Science Foundation’s Nicholas Mayall 4-meter telescope. Kitt Peak National Observatory (program of NSF NOIRLab). The experiment is now in its fourth year of five years of sky exploration, and plans to collect about 40 million galaxies and quasars by the end of the project.

The collaboration is currently analyzing the first three years of data collected and hopes to provide updated measurements of dark energy and the expansion history of our Universe in the spring of 2025.

DESI’s enhanced results are consistent with previous studies of dark energy development, raising anticipation for future scientific results obtained using the same instrument.

The current study’s findings reflect that “dark matter makes up about a quarter of the universe, and dark energy makes up another 70 percent, and we don’t really know what it is,” says Mark Maus, a Berkeley Lab doctoral student. and the University of California, Berkeley, who worked on theory and models to test the new analysis. Maus adds that “the idea that we can take pictures of the universe and solve these big fundamental questions is just mind-boggling.”

Active participation of the IAC

IAC is very active in DESI through two physician-led teams. Francisco Kitaura And Carlos Allende Prieto. The first of such teams, where in addition to Kitaura there is also a researcher Aurelio Carnero

carried out cosmological modeling and systematized the results in a database. For its part, the second team, where in addition to Allende Prieto collaborated Guillaume Thomas And David Aguadoworked on the analysis of stars in our Galaxy, the Milky Way, which play an important role in calibrating DESI measurements.

DESI is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science and the National Energy Research Computing Center, a user facility of the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science. DESI has additional support from the US National Science Foundation, the UK Science and Technology Council, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the Heysing-Simons Foundation, the Commission for Energy and Alternative Energy Atomica (CEA) of France, the National Council of the Humanities. , Science and Technology of Mexico, the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, and DESI member institutions.

The DESI Collaboration thanks the community for permission to conduct scientific research on Ioligam Duag (Kitt Peak), a mountain of special significance to the Tohono O’odham people.