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Type Ia supernovae are affectionately chosen "standard candles" in astronomy. They're blessedly predictable, then we use them to measure out distances. The 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics went to three astronomers who used standard candles to reach the aforementioned determination based on the aforementioned data: namely, that the universe is expanding at an ever-accelerating rate. But a team of cosmologists from Oxford take done a new analysis using an expanded library of supernovae, and their results cast doubtfulness on the Nobel-winning conclusions.

When the Oxford squad did their own analysis of the universe's expansion scenarios, their best-case, most-certain outcome was much less confident that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate. Instead, the data "lends itself" to the determination that the rate of expansion is constant.

Possible Models of the Expanding Universe

Possible models of the expanding universe. Image credit: The Cosmic Perspective / Jeffrey O. Bennett, Megan O. Donahue, Nicholas Schneider and Marker Voit.

It all hinges on the thought of sigmas. Like p-values, sigmas are meant to convey a mensurate of the confidence scientists have in their information. Higher sigma values, like lower p-values, mean greater confidence. The conclusions on the expansion of our universe that won the Nobel had a five-sigma confidence rating. The Oxford scientists got just three sigma in their most confident model. While that doesn't just tear down the current standard model of cosmology, it does enhance the possibility that we should run a sanity check. If the data that we have isn't a representative sample of the behavior of our standard candles, so we really need to become bank check out what other hypotheses nosotros've based on that data set.

"An coordinating instance in this context would be the contempo proposition for a new particle weighing 750 GeV based on data from the Big Hadron Collider at CERN," said pb writer Subir Sarkar in a statement. "Information technology initially had even higher significance – iii.ix and 3.4 sigma in December last year – and stimulated over 500 theoretical papers. However, information technology was announced in August that new data shows that the significance has dropped to less than 1 sigma. It was just a statistical fluctuation, and there is no such particle."

Sarkar noted that night energy could be so hard to find because it doesn't actually exist. The problem in our hypotheses that we solved using the concept of night matter might simply be an artifact of doing our major cosmological theories in the 1930s, "long before in that location was whatsoever real data."

Naturally, Sarkar says, a lot of work will exist necessary to sell the physics community on these ideas. "Hopefully this will motivate meliorate analyses of cosmological information, as well equally inspiring theorists to investigate more nuanced cosmological models," added Sarkar. "Significant progress will be made when the European Extremely Large Telescope makes observations with an ultrasensitive 'laser rummage' to directly measure over a ten to 15-year period whether the expansion rate is indeed accelerating."