TY - JOUR

T1 - Observational Evidence for Cosmological Coupling of Black Holes and its Implications for an Astrophysical Source of Dark Energy

AU - Farrah, Duncan

AU - Croker, Kevin S.

AU - Zevin, Michael

AU - Tarle, Gregory

AU - Faraoni, Valerio

AU - Petty, Sara

AU - Afonso, Jose

AU - Fernandez, Nicolas

AU - Nishimura, Kurtis A.

AU - Pearson, Chris

AU - Wang, Lingyu

AU - Clements, David L.

AU - Efstathiou, Andreas

AU - Hatziminaoglou, Evanthia

AU - Lacy, Mark

AU - McPartland, Conor

AU - Pitchford, Lura K.

AU - Sakai, Nobuyuki

AU - Weiner, Joel

PY - 2023/2/1

Y1 - 2023/2/1

N2 - Observations have found black holes spanning 10 orders of magnitude in mass across most of cosmic history. The Kerr black hole solution is, however, provisional as its behavior at infinity is incompatible with an expanding universe. Black hole models with realistic behavior at infinity predict that the gravitating mass of a black hole can increase with the expansion of the universe independently of accretion or mergers, in a manner that depends on the black hole's interior solution. We test this prediction by considering the growth of supermassive black holes in elliptical galaxies over 0 < z less than or similar to 2.5. We find evidence for cosmologically coupled mass growth among these black holes, with zero cosmological coupling excluded at 99.98% confidence. The redshift dependence of the mass growth implies that, at z less than or similar to 7, black holes contribute an effectively constant cosmological energy density to Friedmann's equations. The continuity equation then requires that black holes contribute cosmologically as vacuum energy. We further show that black hole production from the cosmic star formation history gives the value of omega(?) measured by Planck while being consistent with constraints from massive compact halo objects. We thus propose that stellar remnant black holes are the astrophysical origin of dark energy, explaining the onset of accelerating expansion at z similar to 0.7.

AB - Observations have found black holes spanning 10 orders of magnitude in mass across most of cosmic history. The Kerr black hole solution is, however, provisional as its behavior at infinity is incompatible with an expanding universe. Black hole models with realistic behavior at infinity predict that the gravitating mass of a black hole can increase with the expansion of the universe independently of accretion or mergers, in a manner that depends on the black hole's interior solution. We test this prediction by considering the growth of supermassive black holes in elliptical galaxies over 0 < z less than or similar to 2.5. We find evidence for cosmologically coupled mass growth among these black holes, with zero cosmological coupling excluded at 99.98% confidence. The redshift dependence of the mass growth implies that, at z less than or similar to 7, black holes contribute an effectively constant cosmological energy density to Friedmann's equations. The continuity equation then requires that black holes contribute cosmologically as vacuum energy. We further show that black hole production from the cosmic star formation history gives the value of omega(?) measured by Planck while being consistent with constraints from massive compact halo objects. We thus propose that stellar remnant black holes are the astrophysical origin of dark energy, explaining the onset of accelerating expansion at z similar to 0.7.

KW - GAMMA-RAY BURSTS

KW - MASS FUNCTION

KW - MAXIMUM MASS

KW - CONSTRAINTS

KW - PRESSURE

KW - SYMMETRY

KW - ERA

KW - ACCRETION

KW - SEARCH

KW - SHADOW

U2 - 10.3847/2041-8213/acb704

DO - 10.3847/2041-8213/acb704

M3 - Letter

VL - 944

JO - The Astrophysical Journal Letters

JF - The Astrophysical Journal Letters

SN - 2041-8205

IS - 2

M1 - 31

ER -