ICL: Gravity May Have Saved the Universe After the Big Bang

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ICL: Gravity May Have Saved the Universe After the Big Bang

Post by bystander » Wed Nov 19, 2014 7:51 pm

Gravity May Have Saved the Universe After the Big Bang
Imperial College, London

New research by a team of European physicists could explain why the universe did not collapse immediately after the Big Bang.

Studies of the Higgs particle – discovered at CERN in 2012 and responsible for giving mass to all particles – have suggested that the production of Higgs particles during the accelerating expansion of the very early universe (inflation) should have led to instability and collapse.

Scientists have been trying to find out why this didn't happen, leading to theories that there must be some new physics that will help explain the origins of the universe that has not yet been discovered. Physicists from Imperial College London, and the Universities of Copenhagen and Helsinki, however, believe there is a simpler explanation.

In a new study in Physical Review Letters, the team describe how the spacetime curvature – in effect, gravity – provided the stability needed for the universe to survive expansion in that early period. The team investigated the interaction between the Higgs particles and gravity, taking into account how it would vary with energy.

They show that even a small interaction would have been enough to stabilise the universe against decay. ...

Spacetime curvature and the Higgs stability during inflation - Matti Herranen et al
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