Physicists led by Florian Neukart of Leiden University have proposed a theoretical framework called the Quantum Memory Matrix (QMM) that seeks to provide a common description of several problems in fundamental physics, including the black-hole information paradox, dark matter, dark energy and the possibility of a cyclic Universe. The QMM framework describes spacetime as a discrete structure of finite-capacity quantum cells that can store information about physical interactions. In the original QMM proposal, published in the journal Entropy, the researchers suggested that quantum information could leave persistent "imprints" in spacetime, potentially providing a mechanism for preserving information during black-hole formation and evaporation.
The researchers subsequently extended the framework to cosmology. In a 2026 paper published in Physics, they proposed that the accumulated information stored in the QMM could reproduce gravitational effects associated with cold dark matter. A separate 2025 study in Astronomy proposed that residual energy associated with saturated quantum states could contribute to the observed accelerated expansion normally attributed to dark energy.
The QMM also describes the Universe as undergoing repeated cycles of contraction and expansion. In a 2025 paper published in Entropy, Neukart, Eike Marx and Valerii Vinokur calculated that the Universe has completed approximately 3.6 ± 0.4 cycles within their model and could undergo another 7.8 ± 1.6 cycles before reaching the proposed information-capacity limit. The same study calculated a cumulative QMM cosmic age of 62.0 ± 2.5 billion years.
This figure includes previous cosmic cycles; the authors distinguish it from the approximately 13.8-billion-year age of the current expansion phase used in the standard cosmological model. The QMM framework has also been applied to primordial black holes. A paper published in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics in 2025 proposes that information retained from a previous cosmic cycle could create "information wells" after a cosmic bounce, potentially contributing to primordial black-hole formation.
Separately, researchers have tested a QMM-inspired information-imprinting and retrieval scheme on a seven-qubit IBM transmon quantum processor. The 2025 study reported a logical fidelity of 0.941 ± 0.004 after combining the QMM-inspired layer with a repetition code. This experiment demonstrates a quantum-computing application of the proposed imprinting concept, but it does not constitute experimental confirmation of the cosmological QMM theory.
The QMM remains a theoretical research framework. Its proposed explanations for dark matter, dark energy and cosmic cycles are predictions that require further independent theoretical, observational and experimental testing. Here we are to serve you with news right now.
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