The Dark Energy Survey (DES) is in its sixth year of data collection, and its results continue to inform the quest to understand dark energy. of Latest data release Researchers were able to combine four separate analytical methods to produce more precise results than previously possible. Together, these further limit the potential of dark energy than ever before and strongly confirm what scientists know and don’t know.

Although the situation is still very much in the preliminary stages, the concept of dark energy could become a reality someday be turned overmost physicists still support the following idea. some A kind of dark energy is real. Within this group, two fundamental theories compete to model dark energy. ΛCDM (lambda cold dark matter) and wCDM.

DECam is used to collect much of the data used in dark energy surveys. Credit: Fermilab

The basic differences are: dark energy Is it an immutable constant? Each has different predictions about the large-scale evolution of the universe.

To confirm these predictions, DES needed to combine all four methods of investigating dark energy. These include studying signals from type Ia supernovae, optically investigating the distribution of galaxies and galaxy clusters, observing the universe through weak gravitational lensing, and mapping baryon acoustic oscillations (BAOs) in the universe.

In general, these are ways to look at the large-scale distribution of matter in the Universe, now or in the past, and together they allow astronomers to make incredibly accurate calculations about the nature of dark energy. When DES was first proposed 25 years ago, this type of cross-check was exactly what scientists wanted.

The research team reports that the results of all this search do not prevent: wCompared to the CDM model, there is a stronger agreement with the predictions of the ΛCDM model. The researchers found that their results constrain the possibility of dark energy more than twice as strongly as previous analyses.

But their discovery also confirms and extends an existing problem with the theory: galaxy clustering. Considering measurements of the early universe, ΛCDM and wCDM predicts a pattern of galaxy clusters that is different from what is actually observed.

Of course, in astronomy it’s always important to move quickly to the next goal. Next-The next big thing. Perhaps that includes recently released Vera C. Rubin Observatory. This monster can reconstruct images of tens of billions of galaxies, providing the most detailed insight yet into the large-scale structure of the universe.

The result should be even more singularity, further limiting the possibilities of dark energy. We’ll have to wait and see if this kind of progress will eventually allow scientists to prove the nature of dark energy, or if it will allow us to understand the universe without the need for dark energy at all.