Stress-Testing the Standard Cosmological Model

The concordance cosmological model rests on three invisible pillars—dark matter, dark energy, and black holes—that together make up ~96% of the Universe, yet each remains fundamentally mysterious. We are witnessing a data-driven revolution in black hole astrophysics that is rapidly transforming our understanding of how black holes form, grow, and evolve. At the same time, key assumptions about dark matter and dark energy are being stress-tested. I will present recent results that challenge the picture of collisionless dark matter and perfectly constant dark energy. The remarkably efficient galaxy–galaxy strong lensing signal in massive clusters exceeds LCDM predictions by more than an order of magnitude and demands extremely steep inner density profiles for cluster subhalos—profiles incompatible with standard collisionless dark matter—while their outer truncation radii remain consistent with LCDM. I will introduce two novel and complementary probes of cosmic expansion: cluster-lensing cosmography and a new class of standardized candles built from variable AGN. Together, these observables provide tantalizing hints that dark energy may evolve over cosmic time, deviating from a simple cosmological constant. We are thus, I argue, at a critical juncture: the standard models for dark matter and dark energy, long treated as firmly established, now warrant serious re-examination.