Researchers from Yale University and Duke University have simulated the conditions of the Big Bang in a controlled laboratory setting to better grasp how matter behaved in the universe’s earliest moments. Their findings suggest that many events we observe around us originated a little after that initial eruption. The work was published in Physics Letters B (PLB).
Experts note that the primeval space reached temperatures roughly 250,000 times hotter than the Sun’s core, an intensity high enough to challenge the formation of the protons and neutrons that constitute ordinary matter. These extreme conditions set the stage for the cascade of particles that would define the early cosmos.
New calculations indicate that as the universe expanded, as much as 70 percent of certain measured particles may have emerged from later reactions. This interpretation aligns with data gathered from high-energy collider experiments, where particles collide at colossal speeds and recreate fleeting, hot phases of matter that mirror the birth of the universe.
Further insights show that the creation of new matter began around 0.000001 seconds after the Big Bang, a moment when the primordial soup of subatomic particles started to cool as the universe expanded. These rapid transitions helped shape the distribution and types of particles that eventually formed stars, galaxies, and everything seen today.
Meanwhile, efforts in astronomy have advanced the search for fundamental cosmic objects, including the closest pulsar to Earth, a neutron star that spins rapidly and emits regular beams of radiation. The ongoing study of such compact objects provides complementary information about the extreme physics at work in the early universe and the evolution of matter under intense gravity and magnetic fields. Together with laboratory recreations of early conditions, these lines of inquiry help scientists build a more complete picture of how the cosmos evolved from its fiery beginnings. (Physics Letters B)