London, Oct 7 : Imagining living inside a black hole could be the key to understanding the origin of dark energy, a researcher from the Korea Institute for Advanced Study in Seoul, has said in a new study.

Dark energy is the mysterious force widely thought to be causing the expansion of the universe to accelerate.

Some physicists have previously suggested that dark energy could arise from the quantum bubbling of virtual particles in empty space, but it hasn’t been clear how.

Now, Jae-Weon Lee and his colleagues have proposed that dark energy is created as pairs of these virtual particles are ripped apart from each other by the expanding edge of our universe.

They say, according to quantum theory, even the perfect vacuum of space isn't empty, but is rather a sea of virtual particles, created as entangled pairs of particles and antiparticles, which exist only fleetingly, and then annihilate each other.

The study appears in the New Scientist magazine. (ANI)