THE BIG BANG COSMOLOGY

RINKESH
 The present universe is characterized by a relatively
low temperature and a low density of particles. Its
structure and evolution are dominated by the
gravitational force.
 Because the universe has been expanding and
cooling, in the distant past it must have been
characterized by a higher temperature and a greater
density of particles.
 Let us imagine we could run the cosmic clock
backward and examine the universe at earlier times,
even before the formation of stars and galaxies. At
some point in its history, the temperature of the
universe must have been high enough to ionize atoms;
at that time the universe consisted of a plasma of
electrons and positive ions, and the electromagnetic
force was important in determining the structure of
the universe.
 At still earlier times, the temperature was hot enough
that collisions between the ions would have knocked
loose individual nucleons, so the universe consisted of
electrons, protons, and neutrons, along with
radiation. In this era the strong nuclear force was
important in determining the evolution of the
universe.
 If we try to go back still further, we reach a time
when the matter of the universe consisted only of
quarks and leptons. Because we have never observed
a free quark, we don’t know much about their
individual interactions, and so we can’t describe this
very early state of the universe.
 The grand unified theory-GUT(Strong+weak+EM
force)
 Theory of Everything – TOE (Final, ultimate, master
theory which can explain everything about universe.)
 GR & QFT -Limitations »» Quantum gravity »» String
theory
 GUT
 In physical cosmology, assuming that nature is described
by a Grand unification theory, the grand unification
epoch was the period in the evolution of the early universe
following the Planck epoch, starting at about 10−43 seconds
after the Big Bang, in which the temperature of the
universe was comparable to the characteristic
temperatures of grand unified theories . If the grand
unification energy is taken to be 1015 GeV, this
corresponds to temperatures higher than 1027 K.
 During this period, three of the four fundamental
interactions - electromagnetism, the strong interaction, and
the weak interaction - were unified as the electronuclear
force. Gravity had separated from the electronuclear force
at the end of the plank era. During the grand unification
epoch, physical characteristics such as mass, charge,
flavour and colour charge were meaningless.
 If someday we are able to understand the
interactions of free quarks, we can penetrate this
barrier and look to still earlier times. Eventually
we reach a fundamental barrier when the
universe had an age of only 10^-43 s, which is
known as the Planck time.
 Before this time, quantum theory and gravity are
hopelessly intertwined, and none of our present
theories gives us any clue about the structure of
the universe.
 Later than the Planck time, but still before the
condensation of bulk matter, the universe
consisted of particles, antiparticles, and radiation
in approximate thermal equilibrium at
temperature T.
 The universe at this time was radiation-
dominated: the energy density of the radiation
exceeded the energy density of the matter.
 Radiation dominated universe.

 Matter dominated universe.

 TIME BEGINS:
 The universe begins ~13.7 Billion years ago
 The universe begins as the size of a single atom?

 The universe began as a violent expansion

 All matter and space were created from a single point
of pure energy in an instant?
~ SEVERAL HUNDRED THOUSAND YEARS
AFTER BIG BANG

 ATOMS form (specifically

Hydrogen and its isotopes
with a small amount of
Helium.)
 The early Universe was
about 75% Hydrogen and
25% Helium. It is still
almost the same today.
~200 TO 400 MILLION YEARS AFTER BIG
BANG

1st stars and galaxies form

~ 4.6 BILLION YEARS AGO:
 Our Solar system forms
 The radiation of the early universe consisted of
high-energy photons, whose average energy at
the temperature T can be roughly estimated as
kT, where k is the Boltzmann constant. The
interactions between the radiation and the
matter can be represented by two processes:
photons → particle + antiparticle
particle + antiparticle → photons
 That is, photons can engage in pair production, in
which their energy becomes the rest energy of a
particle-antiparticle pair, or a particle and
antiparticle can annihilate into photons. In each
case, the energy of the photons must be at least
as large as the rest energy of the particle and
antiparticle.
.
THE FORMATION OF NUCLEI AND
ATOMS:
 Let’s review developments in the Big Bang
cosmology up to t = 6 s.
(1) A hot, dense universe, full of
photons and elementary particles (2) Most of the unstable
of all varieties, has cooled to particles have decayed
below away.

K.

4) Neutrinos, which have (3) All of the original

about the same density as
photons, decoupled at
about 1 s and will
continue cooling as the
universe expands.
antimatter and most of the
original matter annihilated one
another, leaving a small
number of protons, an equal
number of electrons, and about
one-fifth as many neutrons.
 As the neutrons and protons collide with one
another, it is possible to form a deuteron (2H
nucleus):
n+p→ +γ
but the high density of photons can also produce
the inverse reaction:
γ+ →n+p
 Here, the deuteron binding energy is 2.22 MeV.
In order to have any appreciable build up of
deuterons, the photons present must first cool
until their energies are below 2.22 MeV;
otherwise the deuterons will be broken up as
quickly as they can be formed.
 The energy 2.22MeV corresponds to a
temperature T = 2.5 × K, and we
therefore might expect deuterons to be
formed as soon as the temperature drops
below 2.5 × K. However, this does not
happen. The radiation does not have a
single energy, but rather has a thermal
spectrum. A small fraction of the photons
has energies above 2.22 MeV, and these
photons continue to break apart the
deuterons.
 Before matter-antimatter annihilation
occurred, there were about as many
photons as nucleons and anti-nucleons,
but after t = 0.01 s, the ratio of nucleons to
photons is about 10−9; about 1/6 of the
nucleons are neutrons. If the fraction of
photons above 2.22MeV is greater than
1/6 × 10−9, there will be at least one
energetic photon per neutron, which
effectively prevents deuteron formation.
Our next job is to calculate to what
temperature the photons must cool before
fewer than 1/6 × 10−9 of them are above
2.22 MeV.
 We expect that the temperature must be much
less than 2.5 × K, and so we are interested in
the distribution where E >> kT, for which The
number density of thermal photons is
approximately


 and the total number density above some energy

E0 is determined by integrating the number
density from to ∞:
which can be shown to be
N/V gives the total number density of photons, and
thus the fraction f above E0 is ,which can be
evaluated to be

 For f = 1/6 × 10−9, corresponding to the number

needed to prevent deuteron formation, above Eq.
gives E0/kT = 28.
 With E0 = 2.22 MeV, the required temperature is
thus about 9 × 108 K; when T >9 × 108 K, the
number of photons with E>2.22MeV is greater
than the number of neutrons, and deuteron ( )
formation is prevented. When T drops below 9 ×
108 K (which occurs at about t = 250 s), deuterons
can be produced.
 From 6 s to 250 s, very little (except expansion
and the corresponding temperature decrease)
happens in the universe, but after t = 250 s
things happen very quickly. Deuterons form and
then react with the many protons and neutrons
available to give

 The energies of formation of these nuclei are,

respectively, 5.49MeV and 6.26 MeV, well above
the 2.22MeV threshold of the deuteron formation.
If the photons are not energetic enough to break
apart the deuterons, they are certainly not
energetic enough to break apart 3He and 3H. The
final steps in the formation of the heavier nuclei
are
 There are no stable nuclei with A = 5, so no
further reactions of this sort are possible. Nor is it
possible to have + reactions because is
highly unstable. (It would be possible to form
stable and , but these are made in very
small quantities relative to H and He; from Li
further reactions are possible, such as +4He
→11B, and so forth, but these occur in still
smaller quantities. The end products 2H and He,
along with the leftover original protons, make up
about 99.9999% of the nuclei after the era of
nuclear reactions.)
 By t = 250 s, the original 16% neutrons present at
t = 6 s had beta-decayed to about 12%, leaving
88% protons. Most of the 2H, 3H, and 3He were
“cooked” into heavier nuclei, so we can assume
the universe to be composed mostly of 1H and
4He nuclei.
 Of the N nucleons present at t = 250 s, 12%
(0.12N) were neutrons and 0.88N were protons.
The 0.12N neutrons combined with 0.12N
protons, forming 0.06N 4He, and leaving 0.88N −
0.12N = 0.76N protons. The universe then
consisted of 0.82N nuclei, of which 0.06N (7.3%)
were 4He and 0.76N (92.7%) were protons.
Helium is about four times as massive as
hydrogen, so by mass the universe is about 24%
helium.
ECHOES OF THE BIG BANG:
 The universe carries memories of its birth, which
can perhaps serve as tests of the theory.
 Neutrino background:

Neutrinos are extremely elusive particles,

difficult to catch and detect, but the density of
these early neutrinos ought to be about the same
as the photon density. Detecting such neutrinos
and measuring their temperature would be a
stringent test of the theory if such experiment
could be done. (earlier)
HELIUM ABUNDANCE:
 Much of the matter in the universe has been formed
and reformed, and so has lost its “memory” of the Big
Bang. There is, however, “first generation” matter in
stars and galaxies, that should show the roughly 24%
helium abundance that characterized the formation of
matter.
 A variety of experiments suggests that the abundance
of helium in the universe is 23 to 27% by mass, in
excellent agreement with our rough estimate of 24%.
These experiments include the emission of visible
light from gas clouds near stars and the emission of
radio waves by interstellar gas, both of which permit
us to compare the amounts of hydrogen and helium
present.
 In addition, the dynamics of stellar formation
depends on the initial hydrogen and helium
concentrations; present theories permit us to
estimate their ratio from the observed properties
of stars. The 24% abundance seems to be rather
constant throughout the universe, as we would
expect if it were predetermined by the Big Bang.
MATTER AND ANTIMATTER:
 In the early universe, there was roughly one
nucleon and one antinucleon for each photon. If
the numbers of nucleons and antinucleons had
been exactly equal, there would have been either
complete annihilation of both (in which case we
would not be around to comment on the outcome)
or else the clumping of matter and antimatter
into galaxies and antigalaxies. Our telescopes
can’t tell the difference between galaxies made of
matter and antimatter (because both emit the
same light), but if there were large quantities of
antimatter in the universe we should occasionally
find a galaxy and an antigalaxy colliding, and
their annihilation would light up the sky.
 We observe many galaxies in the process of
colliding with their neighbors, but none show the
intense annihilation radiation that would signal
a matter-antimatter collision. Our conclusion is
that the universe is made of matter and contains
no significant concentrations of antimatter. For
every 1,000,000,000 nucleons in the early
universe there were 999,999,999 antinucleons;
following the annihilation all of the antinucleons
disappeared, leaving 1 out of the original 10^9
nucleons to make up the current universe.
 Where did the 10−9 excess of matter over
antimatter in the early universe come from? We
don’t yet know the answer to this question, but
evidence gathered in particle physics
experiments may provide a clue.
MINI BLACK HOLES:
 The enormous energy densities present at the
earliest stages of the big bang could have
compressed matter to a high enough density to
have allowed tiny black holes to form.
 This is pure speculation, of course, since no black
hole of any sort has been conclusively identified,
but if such mini black holes exist, they might be
one form of dark matter that is needed to explain
the gravitational attraction in galaxies and
clusters of galaxies, and also provide the “missing
mass” that is necessary to close the universe.
RIPPLES IN THE MICROWAVE BACKGROUND:

 Based on our model of the evolution of the

universe according to Big Bang theory, it is not
clear why stars and galaxies form at all.
THE FUTURE OF THE UNIVERSE:
 Expanding forever?
 Begin contraction?

 Big bang in reverse? (Big crunch)

A flat universe with k=0 must have q=1/2, and
will continue to expand forever

The curved, open universe with k =-1 must

have 0 < q <1/2 and will likewise continue its
expansion.

The closed universe with k=1 has q=1/2 ; this

universe will reach maximum radius and then
begin to contract
.
CRITICAL DENSITY:

 = 1* 10^-26 kg/m^3
 density < ; not enough matter to produce
deceleration and universe expand forever
 Density > ; there is enough matter to
reverse the expansion and close the universe.
 Density = ; universe is flat and expansion
rate slows to zero just as the matter reaches
infinite separation.