Title: Edmund Bertschinger
1What the Largest Structures in the Universe can
tell us about the Smallest
- Edmund Bertschinger
- MIT Department of Physics and
- Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and
- Space Research
2Elementary ParticlesThe periodic table of
physics
- Matter particles
- Spin
- Two known types
- Quarks
- Feel strong force
- Leptons
- Do not feel strong force
- Force carriers
- Spin
- Four known types
- Photons
- Carry electromagnetic forces
- Gluons
- Carry strong nuclear force
- W?,Z0
- Carry weak nuclear force
- Gravitons
- Carry gravity (in principle)
- Higgs (not yet discovered)
- Gives matter particles mass
Many more types are expected to be found this
decade!
3Matter particles grouped into sets
Electron (stable) up quark Electron
neutrino down quark Muon (unstable) charm
quark Muon neutrino strange quark Tauon
(unstable) bottom quark Tau neutrino top quark
1 2 3
Nature provides 3 copies for no apparent reason.
In addition, every particle has an antiparticle.
4What force carriers can do to matter particles
chemistry
- Change the momentum
- e g ? e g (requires electric charge)
- Change the particles (alchemy!)
- e W ? ne (requires weak charge)
- Produce matter/antimatter pairs, or be produced
when matter and antimatter annihilate - e e- ? gg (e- electron, e antielectron)
- gg ? e e- (Particles are not conserved!)
5Composite particles
- Mesons quark-antiquark pairs which do not
annihilate because the quarks have different
strong charges - Pi meson (up anti-up) and (down anti-down)
- Quantum superposition!
- Baryons three quarks whose strong charges add to
zero - Proton (up up down)
- Atomic nuclei protonsneutrons
- Etc.
6Outstanding problems of particle physics
- Why is the periodic table so complicated?
- The search for unified field theories
- Supersymmetry
- Why are the elementary particle masses so light
but not zero? - The mass problem
- Higgs particle
- Astrophysics and cosmology are unlikely to help
answer these questions.
7Particles are not particles
- Theyre waves! Electron microscope!
- No, theyre particles! Photoelectric effect
- No, theyre waves!
- Compromise theyre wavicles! (wave packet)
- Sometimes particles behave like particles,
sometimes like waves!
8Particles are field excitations
Electron field with no electrons Electron field
for a beam of many electrons Electron field
of a localized electron
9Why is astrophysics relevant?
- The early universe was the most powerful particle
accelerator ever. - Cosmic expansion has stretched wavicles whose
wavelength was microscopic, to be larger than the
observable universe today.
10Dark matter after the big bang
11The universe was denser, hence hotter, in the past
- Thermodynamics compressing a gas makes it
hotter, if the heat is trapped in the gas - Hot gas ? energetic particles ? many particles
can be produced by collisions - e.g., gg ? e e-
12Dark matter neutralino c0 (chi-zero)
- Weak forces change one kind of matter particle
into another - e- W ? ne (requires weak charge)
- Supersymmetric forces (hypothetical new forces)
change matter particles into force carriers and
vice-versa. - Lightest supersymmetric particle, c0 , is
predicted to be stable.
13Neutralino production requires high particle
energies
- Emc2 is true only for particles at rest!
- energy E, mass m, speed of light c
- E2 (mc2)2 (pc)2 is always true
- momentum pEv/c2, speed v
- n n ? c0 c0 requires E(n) gt m(c0) gtgt m(n)
- ? produce c0 c0 in hot early universe
14Quantum mechanics Heisenberg uncertainty
principle
- Its impossible to measure both position and
momentum (proportional to 1/wavelength) exactly
for a wavicle - Its also impossible to measure the energy
(proportional to 1/frequency) in an arbitrarily
short time. - These hold for any kind of wave, not just quantum
wavicles!
15The particle loophole
- Particles can materialize out of nothing
(vacuum), live a short time, then disappear. - Nothing ? e e- ? Nothing
- Virtual Particles
16Effects of virtual particles
- All static forces (gravity, electrostatic,
magnetostatic, etc.) carried by virtual
force-carriers - Virtual particles interact with real particles to
modify their interactions (plasma screening or
confinement) - Virtual particles contribute nonzero energy to
the vacuum (empty space). - The problem they contribute Infinite energy!
17Virtual particles in cosmology
- The universe has no preferred axis of orientation
? spin-0 force-carriers (e.g. Higgs field) can
contribute a residual nonzero energy - Vacuum or false (temporary) vacuum energy
- Could explain dark energy
- Could also power the big bang itself!
18Powering the big bangCosmic Inflation (Alan
Guth, 1981)
Recall from lecture 1 Separation between pair
of matter particles R(t) If dR/dt gt 0 and CR2
gt k, eventually k becomes tiny and can be
neglected to good approximation. Exponential
growth of prices inflation
19Consequences of cosmic inflation
- A region smaller than a peso gets stretched to
become larger than our observable universe - Any initial small-scale roughness is smoothed to
an imperceptibly small amount ? Explains why the
universe is so homogeneous and isotropic!
20Consequences of cosmic inflation
- Any initial k constant becomes negligibly small
compared with (dR/dt)2. In general relativity, k
determines the geometry of space. k 0 is
Euclidean space. - k0 klt0 kgt0
- Inflation predicts k0 as now observed to 1
accuracy!
21Consequences of cosmic inflation
- Quantum fluctuations of the spin-0 force-carrier
that drives inflation lead to very weak
fluctuations of density after inflation. Similar
to Hawking radiation from black holes! - Black holes make virtual particles
- become real!
- Inflation makes virtual particles
- become real, then stretches their waves!
- (The key feature of both is an event horizon.)
e-
e
BH
22After a few billion years
- Exponential stretching causes the quantum waves
to behave classically (roughly, Heisenbergs
uncertainty is relatively unimportant for very
big things) - The waves push around matter and radiation,
creating small ripples which then amplify into
all structure we see in the universe
23Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation Maps
Observation, Theory
Simulated map at WMAP resolution made in
1995 (different false color scheme, statistical
comparison only)
WMAPs results were judged the top scientific
breakthrough of 2003!
24CMBR Angular Power SpectrumCosmic
SonogramTop Temperature fluctuations vs.
angular scale(data points and theory)Bottom
Cross-correlation of temperature and linear
polarizationvs. angular scaleFrom Bennett et
al. 2003, WMAP
25Conclusions
- Cosmic inflation refines the big bang theory.
- Its predictions have so far been well confirmed
no other theory has explained all that inflation
does. - Results suggest a new very high mass spin-0 field
existed in the early universe. - Success increase confidence that we can
understand the universe from age 10-35 to 1017
seconds. - Dark matter should be produced in the lab AND
detected from space mañana.
26For additional information
- The Fabric of the Cosmos Space, Time, and the
Texture of Reality, Brian Greene - The Elegant Universe Superstrings, Hidden
Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate
Theory, Brian Greene (more advanced than The
Fabric of the Cosmos) - The First Three Minutes A Modern View of the
Origin of the Universe, Steven Weinberg (a
slightly outdated classic) - The Inflationary Universe The Quest for a New
Theory of Cosmic Origins, Alan H. Guth (advanced
but without math)