Dark energy, the harbinger of doom

Abstract

Nemanja Kaloper of the University of California, Davis, and Antonio Padilla of the University of Nottingham in the UK attempted to cancel out the curvature caused by the quantum instabilities by modifying the equations of general relativity on the largest scale possible: the whole of space-time. The researchers have proposed a trigger for the collapse of the universe: a new quantum field that permeates the universe. The field's energy would drop slowly overtime, eventually becoming negative and setting off the cosmos's contraction. Before the contraction begins, however, the field would cause the universe's initial expansion to accelerate, just as it is doing now. It's as if the dark energy is the harbinger of doom, says Padilla.