2023-05-29 16:40:42
This is a classic result concerning the resolution of the Schrödinger equation for an electron in an atom or in a potential box to use the jargon of physicists: a matter wave confined by a force in a finite region of space endows the particle associated with this wave with discrete energy levels. For Schrödinger, this suggested that the waves of matter in a solution of Einstein’s equations with a closed space, especially in the form of a sphere, must also manifest a discrete state of energy, simply find themselves in the form of a particle of given mass. This therefore perhaps made it possible to account for the atomicity of electrons and nucleons, the particles of matter known in the 1930s. This would not be the case in an infinite universe, the waves of matter not being confined there. in a spatially finite region.
So he decided in 1939 to look at this question more closely, which led him, the first, to discover the creation of particles of matter in expanding curved space-times. From the 1960s to the 1980s, the question of the curved space-time behavior of quantum fields was taken up by several researchers, first and foremost Leonard Parker, but also by Viatcheslav Mukhanov and Gennady Chibisov who in the early 1980s, while stationed at the Lebedev Institute of Physics in Moscow, expounded a theory giving rise to galaxies and large structures bringing them together from quantum fluctuations in the fields of matter and force at the very beginning of the Big Bang.
Stephen Hawking and Mukhanov independently came to similar conclusions regarding the birth of galaxies from quantum fluctuations during the Big Bang. To obtain a fairly accurate French translation, click on the white rectangle at the bottom right. The English subtitles should then appear. Then click on the nut to the right of the rectangle, then on “Subtitles” and finally on “Translate automatically”. Choose “French”. © BBVA Foundation
From primordial black holes to clusters of galaxies
These fluctuations, particularly within the framework of the theory of inflationary cosmology which was developing at that time and which involved an extraordinarily rapid but equally short expansion phase of space at the beginning of the Big Bang, were to produce fluctuations in the density of matter. Fluctuations which, collapsing gravitationally, might therefore give galaxies but also primordial black holes of several sizes, as small as a mountain or much larger than the Sun.
Although the question is still open, the scenario of the generation of large galactic structures and even matter from quantum effects at the beginning of the Big Bang is generally accepted by the community of cosmologists and one can almost say that t is part of the standard cosmological model, although it remains to be really confirmed and in a very precise form. Analyzes of observations of the background radiation by the Planck satellite, however, provide strong arguments for this scenario.
It has therefore been a common working theme for decades and it is in this context that an article published some time this year in Physical Review Letters, by researchers from the Niels-Bohr Institute, the Autónoma University of Madrid and the CNRS University of Paris. The article is freely available at arXiv.
The physicists behind this work were once more asking questions regarding the generation of primordial black holes. Indeed, the first black holes detected by their gravitational wave emissions by Ligo, in 2015, directly on Earth were surprisingly massive. Masses of regarding ten solar masses at most were expected to be measured, consistent with known black holes in binary systems and initially detected by X-ray emissions from accreting disks of matter surrounding them. Could we in fact explain the massive black holes indirectly highlighted by the gravitational wave detectors Ligo and Virgo by interpreting them as primordial black holes and not black holes coming from the collapse of stars? These black holes would then be density fluctuations resulting from quantum fluctuations which would have collapsed gravitationally during the Big Bang, when the observable cosmos was still very dense.
This video shows the distant molten galaxy cluster ACT-CL J0102−4915. It combines images taken with the Very Large Telescope from ESO with images from the SOAR telescope and X-ray observations from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. The X-ray image shows the hot gas in the cluster and is shown in blue. This newly discovered cluster of galaxies has been dubbed El Gordo – the “fat one” in Spanish. It consists of two separate galaxy subclusters colliding at millions of miles per hour, and is so distant that its light has traveled seven billion years to reach Earth. © ESO, SOAR NASA
New physics or well-understood quantum physics?
The researchers then came across an unexpected result, in addition to being able to account for these black holes by involving both the presence of what are called non-Gaussian fluctuations and a process called quantum scattering in the fluctuations. primordial quantum molecules, large clusters of galaxies might be brought regarding early from these ingredients, which until now had perplexed cosmologists.
This is particularly the case of a well-known cluster nicknamed El Gordo – the “big one” in Spanish. They are actually two separate subclusters colliding at a speed of several million kilometers per hour and have been studied with ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) as well. , located in the Atacama Desert in Chile, than by the Nasa Chandra X-ray Observatory, as explained in an ESO statement more than a decade ago. At that time, astronomer Felipe Menanteau, of the Rutgers University in the United States, explained: This cluster is the most massive, the hottest and the one that emits the most X-rays of all the clusters observed so far at this distance or beyond. We want to see if we understand how these extreme objects form using the best cosmological models currently in use. »
The discovery of several such massive clusters early in the history of the observable cosmos when they should have formed more recently was a potential problem for the standard cosmological model as is the case for the discovery of large galaxies a few hundred million only years following the Big Bang according to the James-Webb observations.
But perhaps this standard model should not be challenged, for example by removing dark matter and replacing it with a modification of the theory of gravitation within the framework of the Mond theory.
As the work now published shows, the solution may simply be to properly account for the effects of quantum field fluctuations during the Big Bang.
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