Do Black Holes Grow with the Expansion of the Universe, as the Dark-Particle Self-Replication Hypothesis Suggests? A Test on 249 LIGO–Virgo–KAGRA Mergers

This paper is part of the SRDP (Self-Replication of Dark Particles) programme, which asks whether the history of the Universe can be described as self-replication — processes where new objects appear at a rate set by how many already exist, as when cells divide or RNA is copied. In earlier versions we proposed that a black hole is not a point of infinite density but a dense clump of the same dark particles whose replication, in the programme's hypothesis, accelerates cosmic expansion. Its mass should then grow together with the Universe, absorbing the medium as food for dark-particle replication inside it (the mass comes from new particles, not from the medium itself, which carries no energy), even when it absorbs no ordinary matter.

Self-replication fixes the form of this growth — the mass grows in proportion to itself, dM/dt = r·M, as for any replicator — but not the rate r inside a black hole. We postulate that r equals the programme's cosmic "working rate"; this turns the hypothesis into a parameter-free law: the mass grows as a power of the scale factor a with a local index k(z) = 3Ω_Λ(z), Ω_Λ(z) being the dark-energy fraction at redshift z (at today's rate the mass would double every ≈ 5 Gyr). We test it on 249 binary black-hole mergers from the LIGO–Virgo–KAGRA catalogues. The failure criterion was fixed in advance: the law is refuted if the growth model loses to the no-growth model with ln B < −5 (likelihood ratio ≈ 150:1) in all nine pre-specified configurations. We find ln B from −15.7 to −21.7 (baseline −17.3): the "echo" predicted by the  law, a copy of the mass peaks shifted to higher masses in nearby mergers, is absent. The full law is refuted under the adopted merger-delay model.

We also tested weakened growth, a fraction ε_BH of the law. The best fit is ε_BH = 0; the threshold is crossed at ε_BH ≈ 0.55 (this calculation was not recorded in advance, so its outcome is "excluded" rather than "refuted"). Under the same delay model, growth above about half of the law is excluded; weaker growth is neither excluded nor established and remains an open hypothesis with a free parameter.

What this means for self-replication. What is refuted is the postulated growth rate, not self-replication: if black holes are clumps of self-replicating dark particles, under the adopted delay model, the particles inside copy themselves at less than about half the assumed rate (today the mass would double no faster than once per ≈ 9 Gyr). The explanation of accelerated expansion by self-replication of dark particles (steps 1–8 of the main paper) and the question of what lies inside black holes are not addressed by this test; the programme loses only its single parameter-free prediction.