Why now?: the Nancy Kerrigan problem
See the post: *Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and LENR *for an introfuction. A critical constraint on dark energy is that it not interfere with the formation of structure in the Universe. This means that dark energy must have been relatively unimportant in the past (at least back to the time of last scattering). If dark energy is characterized by some constant w, in the past W was small hereby not interfering with structure formation throughout the universe. Now W has grown large affect the universe greatly. This means that the dark-energy density evolves more slowly compared to matter. That is, in the past dark energy was unimportant and in the future it will be dominant! We just happen to live at the time when dark matter and dark energy have comparable densities. In the words of Olympic skater Nancy Kerrigan, Why me? Why now?" This fits the dust born LENR process to a T. In the early universe there was little space for dust clouds to spread. As the universe gradually expanded, more space was available for dust clouds to form where LENR could take hold. Now LENR is becoming the major energy producer in the universe. For example, XUV light is being produced 400% more than can be explained in excited hydrogen in these dust clouds than can be explained by existing radiation sources. Perhaps this fact is an important clue to unraveling the nature of the dark energy. Perhaps LENR it could be the basis of an explanation for the changing size of the cosmological constant.
