NEW EVIDENCE SUPPORTING DYNAMICAL DARK ENERGY

 An international team of researchers led by the University of Portsmouth has found that the nature of dark energy may not be the cosmological constant proposed by Albert Einstein a century ago.
 The physical property of dark energy is represented by its Equation of State (EoS), which is the ratio of pressure and energy density of dark energy. According to traditional dark matter models, dark energy is a cosmological constant (e.g. the vacuum energy, with a constant EoS of -1).
 The team, led by Professor Gong-Bo Zhao at the University of Portsmouth, found evidence of a dynamical dark energy at a significant level of 3.5 sigma (much higher than normal). These measurements came from a study concerning the Baryonic Acoustic Oscillations published in 2016 by the SDSS-III Collaboration.
 “Since its discovery at the end of last century, dark energy has been a riddle wrapped in an enigma,” said co-author Professor Bob Nichol, Director of the Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation at the University of Portsmouth. “We are all desperate to gain some greater insight into its characteristics and origin. Such work helps us make progress in solving this 21st century mystery.”
Read more about this fascinating story at: http://www.sci-news.com/astronomy/dynamical-dark-energy-05282.html
Image Credit: NASA / ESA / JPL-Caltech / Yale / CNRS.