Why Didn't The Universe Collapse Immediately After The Big Bang?

April Flowers for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

The Higgs boson — a particle responsible for giving mass to all particles — was reportedly discovered in 2012 at CERN, although that has recently been called into question. Since that discovery, studies have suggested that the production of Higgs particles during the accelerating expansion of the very early universe, known as inflation, should have led to instability and collapse.

A new study published in Physical Review Letters might explain why the universe did not collapse immediately after the Big Bang, which is something that scientists have been striving to understand. This uncertainty has led to theories of some new, undiscovered physics that would explain the origins of the universe. The current study’s team – from Imperial College London, the University of Copenhagen, and the University of Helsinki – believe that the answer might be simpler than a new form of physics.

Their findings describe how the stability needed for the universe to survive expansion in that early period was provided by the spacetime curvature, or gravity. The team examined the interaction between gravity and the Higgs boson, taking into account how it would vary with energy. Their results show that even a small interaction should be enough to stabilize the universe against decay.

“The Standard Model of particle physics, which scientists use to explain elementary particles and their interactions, has so far not provided an answer to why the universe did not collapse following the Big Bang,” explains Professor Arttu Rajantie, from the Department of Physics at Imperial College London.

“Our research investigates the last unknown parameter in the Standard Model – the interaction between the Higgs particle and gravity. This parameter cannot be measured in particle accelerator experiments, but it has a big effect on the Higgs instability during inflation. Even a relatively small value is enough to explain the survival of the universe without any new physics!”

The Standard Model, according to CERN, is a theory developed in the 1970s that explains how the basic building blocks of matter interact, as they are governed by four fundamental forces—the strong force, the weak force, the electromagnetic force, and the gravitational force.

The researchers will continue their investigations using cosmological observations to gain a more detailed view of this interaction, as well as explain what effect it would have had on the development of the early universe. Data from current and future European Space Agency (ESA) missions measuring cosmic microwave background radiation and gravitational waves will be crucial in this search.

“Our aim is to measure the interaction between gravity and the Higgs field using cosmological data,” says Professor Rajantie. “If we are able to do that, we will have supplied the last unknown number in the Standard Model of particle physics and be closer to answering fundamental questions about how we are all here.”

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