Move Over Black Holes, There's a New Kid in Town

[Rhinoqulous]

New theory of Dark Energy Starscould replace black holes in the universe with a new type of star that doesn't violate any laws of QM. These Dark Energy Stars could also be the source of Dark Energy and Dark Matter in the universe. Read the article at the link above from New Scientist (not a subscriber only article, so anyone can go read it).

[a different tim]

This paragraph is interesting

NS wrote

The most intriguing fallout from this idea has to do with the strength of the vacuum energy inside the dark energy star. This energy is related to the star's size, and for a star as big as our universe the calculated vacuum energy inside its shell matches the value of dark energy seen in the universe today.

Not sure about it (maybe they've juggled the value of their dark energy so this would be true by definition, maybe they haven't, and anyway dark energy seems a bit ad hoc in general) but interesting.

[Choobus]

how dare they call a quantum critical phase transition an "obscure quantum phenomenon". The Bohm-Aharanov effect, now that's fucking obscure.

[Rhinoqulous]

Choobus wrote

how dare they call a quantum critical phase transition an "obscure quantum phenomenon". The Bohm-Aharanov effect, now that's fucking obscure.

You can play with a little java-script program of the Bohm-Aharanov effect here.

[Choobus]

ha ha, thanks Rhino, that's quite amusing. Still, who would have thought the vector potential would do that! Fucking amazing.

[Philboid Studge]

Not only is this theory testable, but there's a prediction: 'matter falling into a dark energy star will heat up the star, causing it to emit infrared radiation.' (And the eggheads think this will be measurable within ten years.)