Did the universe begin with a Dark Big Bang?  

New hypothesis tries to explain dark matter

The standard model of the universe states that it began with a Big Bang, going through a brief period of rapid expansion. Just 20 minutes after the Big Bang, the first protons and photons began to exist in a process we call nucleosynthesis. But even though this model can accurately predict the amount of hydrogen and helium in the universe, we still don’t understand dark matter, that mysterious and invisible form of matter that makes up the majority of the universe’s mass.

A group of researchers now proposes a new idea where the era of rapid expansion of the universe and nucleosynthesis were not alone. According to the new hypothesis , dark matter evolved at the same time but on a completely different trajectory. In this scenario, when the initial rapid expansion stopped and the universe filled with particles and radiation, dark matter continued to exist in some kind of quantum field. As the universe expanded and cooled, this quantum field changed, leading to the formation of dark matter.

The advantage of this approach is firstly that it decouples the evolution of dark matter from normal matter. Thus, our understanding of Big Bang nucleosynthesis as we know it does not change, while dark matter evolves along a different path. In addition, the new hypothesis opens up new avenues of exploration in a variety of theoretical models of dark matter due to its distinct evolutionary path, making calculations and more generally how we treat dark matter in relation to our observations easier.

For example, the team of researchers calculated that if there really was a Dark Big Bang, it happened when our universe was just one month old. Scientists think they can detect the Dark Big Bang through gravitational waves, since if it really did exist, it would have released powerful gravitational waves with a unique signature.

The research was published in arxiv .