Physicists have created what they are calling “the most comprehensive view” of the history of the universe.
Drawn up by researchers from the Australian National University, this representation could help shine a light on how our universe started.
Study lead Professor Charley Lineweaver said that he set out with the desire to understand where all the objects in the universe came from.
Lineweaver added: “When the universe began 13.8 billion years ago in a hot Big Bang, there were no objects like protons, atoms, people, planets, stars or galaxies. Now the universe is full of such objects.
“The relatively simple answer to where they came from is that, as the universe cooled, all of these objects condensed out of a hot background.”
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To represent this process, the researchers made two plots — one showing the temperature and density of the universe as it expanded and cooled.
The other plots out the mass and size of all types of objects in the universe.
Paper co-author and astrophysicist Vihan Patel — a former research student at ANU — said that the project has raised some important questions.
He explained: “Parts of the plot are ‘forbidden’ — where objects cannot be denser than black holes, or are so small, quantum mechanics blurs the very nature of what it really means to be a singular object.”
The boundaries of the plots and what might lie beyond them also present a major mystery, the team noted.
Patel said: “At the smaller end, the place where quantum mechanics and general relativity meet is the smallest possible object — an instanton.
“This plot suggests the universe may have started as an instanton, which has a specific size and mass, rather than a singularity, which is a hypothetical point of infinite density and temperature.
On the larger end, the plot suggests that if there were nothing — a complete vacuum — beyond the observable universe, our universe would be a large, low density black hole.
“This is a little scary, but we have good reason to believe that’s not the case.”
The full findings of the study were published in The American Journal of Physics.
