Experimental evidence for accelerated expansion is consistent with TGD based model

There are several pieces of evidence for accelerated expansion, which need not mean cosmological constant, although this is the interpretation adopted here. It is interesting to see whether this evidence is indeed consistent with TGD based interpretation.

A. The four pieces of evidence for accelerated expansion

A.1. Supernovas of type Ia

Supernovas of type Ia define standard candles since their luminosity varies in an oscillatory manner and the period is proportional to the luminosity. The period gives luminosity and from this the distance can be deduced by using Hubble's law: d= cz/H₀, H₀ Hubble's constant. The observation was that the farther the supernova was the more dimmer it was as it should have been. In other words, Hubble's constant increased with distance and the cosmic expansion was accelerating rather than decelerating as predicted by the standard matter dominated and radiation dominated cosmologies.

A.2 Mass density is critical and 3-space is flat

It is known that the contribution of ordinary and dark matter explaining the constant velocity of distance stars rotating around galaxy is about 25 per cent from the critical density. Could it be that total mass density is critical?

From the anisotropy of cosmic microwave background one can deduce that this is the case. What criticality means geometrically is that 3-space defined as surface with constant value of cosmic time is flat. This reflects in the spectrum of microwave radiation. The spots representing small anisotropies in the microwave background temperature is 1 degree and this correspond to flat 3-space. If one had dark matter instead of dark energy the size of spot would be .5 degrees!

Thus in a cosmology based on general relativity cosmological constant remains the only viable option. The situation is different in TGD based quantum cosmology based on sub-manifold gravity and hierarchy of gravitational Planck constants.

A.3 The energy density of vacuum is constant in the size scale of big voids

It was observed that the density of dark energy would be constant in the scale of 10⁸ light years. This length scale corresponds to the size of big voids containing galaxies at their boundaries.

A.4 Integrated Sachs-Wolf effect

Also so called integrated Integrated Sachs-Wolf effect supports accelerated expansion. Very slow variations of mass density are considered. These correspond to gravitational potentials. Cosmic expansion tends to flatten them but mass accretion to form structures compensates this effect so that gravitational potentials are unaffected and there is no effect of CMB. Situation changes if dark matter is replaced with dark energy the accelerated expansion flattening the gravitational potentials wins the tendency of mass accretion to make them deeper. Hence if photon passes by an over-dense region, it receives a little energy. Similarly, photon loses energy when passing by an under-dense region. This effect has been observed.

B. Comparison with TGD

The minimum TGD based explanation for accelerated expansion involves only the fact that the imbeddings of critical cosmologies correspond to accelerated expansion. A more detailed model allows to understand why the critical cosmology appears during some periods.

B.1. Accelerated expansion in classical TGD

The first observation is that critical cosmologies (flat 3-space) imbeddable to 8-D imbedding space H correspond to negative pressure cosmologies and thus to accelerating expansion. The negativity of the counterpart of pressure in Einstein tensor is due to the fact that space-time sheet is forced to be a 4-D surface in 8-D imbedding space. This condition is analogous to a force forcing a particle at the surface of 2-sphere and gives rise to what could be called constraint force. Gravitation in TGD is sub-manifold gravitation whereas in GRT it is manifold gravitation. This would be minimum interpretation involving no assumptions about what mechanism gives rise to the critical periods.

B.2 Accelerated expansion and hierarchy of Planck constants

One can go one step further and introduce the hierarchy of Planck constants. The basic difference between TGD and GRT based cosmologies is that TGD cosmology is quantum cosmology. Smooth cosmic expansion is replaced by an expansion occurring in discrete jerks corresponding to the increase of gravitational Planck constant. At space-time level this means the replacement of 8-D imbedding space H with a book like structure containing almost-copies of H with various values of Planck constant as pages glued together along critical manifold through which space-time sheet can leak between sectors with different values of hbar. This process is the geometric correlate for the the phase transition changing the value of Planck constant.

During these phase transition periods critical cosmology applies and predicts automatically accelerated expansion. Neither genuine negative pressure due to "quintessence" nor cosmological constant is needed. Note that quantum criticality replaces inflationary cosmology and predicts a unique cosmology apart from single parameter. Criticality also explains the fluctuations in microwave temperature as long range fluctuations characterizing criticality.

B.3 Accelerated expansion and flatness of 3-cosmology

Observations 1) and 2) about super-novae and critical cosmology (flat 3-space) are consistent with this cosmology. In TGD dark energy must be replaced with dark matter because the mass density is critical during the phase transition. This does not lead to wrong sized spots since it is the increase of Planck constant which induces the accelerated expansion understandable also as a constraint force due to imbedding to H.

B.4 The size of large voids is the characteristic scale

The TGD based model in its simplest form model assigns the critical periods of expansion to large voids of size 10⁸ ly. Also larger and smaller regions can express similar periods and dark space-time sheets are expected to obey same universal "cosmology" apart from a parameter characterizing the duration of the phase transition. Observation 3) that just this length scale defines the scale below which dark energy density is constant is consistent with TGD based model.

The basic prediction is jerkwise cosmic expansion with jerks analogous to quantum transitions between states of atom increasing the size of atom. The discovery of large voids with size of order 10⁸ ly but age much longer than the age of galactic large voids conforms with this prediction (see this). One the other hand, it is known that the size of galactic clusters has not remained constant in very long time scale so that jerkwise expansion indeed seems to occur.

B.5 Do cosmic strings with negative gravitational mass cause the phase transition inducing accelerated expansion

Quantum classical correspondence is the basic principle of quantum TGD and suggest that the effective antigravity manifested by accelerated expansion might have some kind of concrete space-time correlate. A possible correlate is super heavy cosmic string like objects at the center of large voids which have negative gravitational mass under very general assumptions. The repulsive gravitational force created by these objects would drive galaxies to the boundaries of large voids. At some state the pressure of galaxies would become too strong and induce a quantum phase transition forcing the increase of gravitational Planck constant and expansion of the void taking place much faster than the outward drift of the galaxies. This process would repeat itself. In the average sense the cosmic expansion would not be accelerating.

For details see the chapter Quantum Astrophysics of "Classical Physics in Many-Sheeted Space-Time".