Document Type

Article

Publication Date

8-13-2003

Publication Title

Physical Review Letters

Department

Department of Physics and Astronomy

Abstract

We explore the consequences that follow if the dark energy is phantom energy, in which the sum of the pressure and energy density is negative. The positive phantom-energy density becomes infinite in finite time, overcoming all other forms of matter, such that the gravitational repulsion rapidly brings our brief epoch of cosmic structure to a close. The phantom energy rips apart the Milky Way, solar system, Earth, and ultimately the molecules, atoms, nuclei, and nucleons of which we are composed, before the death of the Universe in a “big rip.”

DOI

10.1103/PhysRevLett.91.071301

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