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The FINANCIAL For the first time, DES scientists can combine measurements of the distribution of matter, galaxies, and galaxy clusters to advance our understanding of dark energy.
According to Stanford University, the universe is expanding at an ever-increasing rate, and while no one is sure why, researchers with the Dark Energy Survey (DES) at least had a strategy for figuring it out: They would combine measurements of the distribution of matter, galaxies and galaxy clusters to better understand what’s going on.
Reaching that goal turned out to be pretty tricky, but now a team led by researchers at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford University and the University of Arizona have come up with a solution. Their analysis, published today in Physical Review Letters, yields more precise estimates of the average density of matter as well as its propensity to clump together – two key parameters that help physicists probe the nat