Antigravity effect: Image shows the changing rate of expansion of the universe since the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago. Dark energy is thought to have accelerated the rate of expansion.
Credit: NASA
If matter and dark energy interact, this would also cause the dark energy field to manifest itself as new and exotic subatomic particles that could be detected in particle colliders, such as the Large Hadron Collider, he said.
Astronomer Brian Schmidt, from the Australian National University, in Canberra, who specialises in supernovae studies, said the paper was "interesting" if "fairly controversial".
The model suggests that "if we look back in time dark energy would not have been as repulsive as it is now", said Schmidt. "This is interesting as there is no real way to get out of that [prediction] – it is something we can test. If the universe is like this, it is something that is challenging to detect, but it is possible,"
But, he questioned whether the model bears any resemblance to the real world.
