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What are the observational implications if black holes are the source of dark energy?

POSTER

Abstract

It was recently suggested that "cosmologically coupled" black holes with masses that increase in proportion to the volume of the Universe might constitute the physical basis of dark energy. In this talk, we take this claim at face value and discuss its potential astrophysical implications. We will see that the gravitational wave emission in binary systems would be significantly enhanced so that the number of black hole mergers would exceed the observed rate by orders of magnitude, with typical masses much larger than those seen by the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA network. Separately, if the mass growth happens at fixed angular momentum, the supermassive black holes in matter-deficient elliptical galaxies should be slowly rotating. Finally, cosmological coupling would stabilize small black holes against Hawking radiation-induced evaporation.

Publication: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2306.08199.pdf (published in The Open Journal of Astrophysics)

Presenters

  • Sohan Ghodla

    University of Auckland

Authors

  • Sohan Ghodla

    University of Auckland

  • Richard Easther

    University of Auckland

  • Max Briel

    University of Geneva

  • J.J. Eldridge

    University of Auckland