Our common understanding of the universe tells us that all matter and energy were created at the beginning of time during a period of rapid inflation called the Big Bang.
However, in 2023, Katherine Freese, director of the Texas Center for Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, and Martin Wolfgang Winkler of the University of Texas suggested a radical new idea: a "second Big Bang." This "Dark Big Bang" would have given rise to the universe's most mysterious "stuff," known as dark matter.
Now, two scientists from Colgate University have expanded on the concept of the Dark Big Bang, which may have flooded the universe with dark matter at the same time as the standard Big Bang up to one year after the primary cosmic creation event. They set out all the possible scenarios for a Dark Big Bang that would keep it consistent with our observations of the universe. The duo also determined how evidence of a Dark Big Bang could be gathered.
