William Atkins
Monday, 10 August 2009 18:54
Science -
Energy
Page 6 of 9
The evolution of the Universe occurs in four phases.
Evolution of the Universe Four phases occur in this evolution of the early universe.
PHASE 1 In phase 1, the very first particle is originally alone in its Universe. Because forces are mediated by particles (so-called gauge bosons), which do not yet exist, there are no forces acting upon the primordial particle. This massive, neutral, and spinless particle (which was first described by Paul Dirac in 1971) has several remarkable properties.
For instance, it is its own antiparticle (both matter and antimatter, much like today's neutral pion that predominantly decays into two photons) and may annihilate itself in an irreversible process, either directly, or indirectly via an intermediate particle-antiparticle state.
As the Universe expands, clones of the particle appear on the horizon. (The particles are indistinguishable from each other. Therefore, any particle may be regarded as the original one, in the same way as there is no preferred “center of the Universe.”)
The primordial particles are unstable and begin to decay into radiation in a process that rapidly leads to their complete extinction. (Since the process is irreversible, virtual particles cannot form, and all traces of the original particle will eventually be lost.)
Global conservation of energy implies that the rest energy of matter must increase as radiation constantly loses energy (no change in net energy) because of the redshift caused by the expansion (that is, photons propagating through the expanding space are stretched, creating the cosmological redshift).
In a purely radiative Universe (one consisting exclusively of massless radiation), there is no matter (i.e., particles possessing mass) to counterbalance the continuous decrease in radiation energy due to redshift caused by the expanding Universe.
A continuous loss of energy through photon redshifting, with nothing to counterbalance that energy loss, is a violation of the law of conservation of energy; therefore, when the last primordial particle decays the Universe is forced to rematerialize.
An electric force (which today is no longer active) appears in the early Universe with the sole purpose to recreate matter from radiation. This matter comes in the form of pairs of oppositely charged “spinless muons” (that is, non-spinning heavy electrons).
The force is theoretically described by quantum electrodynamics (QED), or more precisely by scalar QED, which is the theory for “spinless electrons,” while spinor QED describes today’s spinning electron and its interaction with photons.
[Since spinless electrons do not exist today, scalar QED has no practical use, and neither “scalar QED” nor “spinor QED” are currently used terms. Instead of talking about “spinor QED,” physics textbooks use the simpler “QED” and often only in passing mention “scalar electrodynamics” as opposed to “spinor electrodynamics.”]
Page 7 continues with phases two, three, and four.
