Black holes haunt ghost particle theory

NewScientist.com

The theory that claims to solve cosmology’s major mysteries by proposing that empty space is filled with a fluid of ghostly particles may, literally, be going down the cosmic drain. According to the latest calculations, the universe’s black holes would be slurping up any such fluid.

The ghost condensate theory, proposed last year, is a modified form of Einstein’s general theory of relativity. It posits an all-pervading fluid of massless particles that exhibits a repulsive gravity, making it behave like an elastic band that stores more and more energy as it stretches out.

The theory’s attraction for cosmologists is that it promises to explain at a stroke three of their most pressing conundrums: the nature of the dark energy that is pushing the universe apart, the nature of the dark matter that holds spinning galaxies together, and what it was that caused the universe to undergo a rapid inflation just after the Big Bang