Friday, May 2, 2025

What Existed Before The Big Bang

Our universe began with The Big Bang. But what existed before the Big Bang?

From the University of Texas at Austin, researchers propose that dark matter might have been created during a brief, explosive period of expansion called “Cosmic Inflation,” which occurred just before the Big Bang. The universe, at that point, would have consisted of mostly dark matter, completely undetectable to our eyes.

Scientists believe that dark matter makes up roughly 85% of all matter. This study suggests that the substance existed before the event that many consider the beginning of time.

The model for the study assumes that dark matter is successfully produced during inflation. In most models, anything that is created during inflation is thinned away by the expansion of the universe until there is essentially nothing left.

The research introduces a mechanism called WIFI (Warm Inflation Freeze-In), which suggests that dark matter could have been generated during the universe’s earliest moments through rare interactions within an incredibly hot and energetic environment.

Cosmologists understand the universe’s beginning was more complex than a simple explosive moment. Before the Big Bang, matter and energy were compressed into an incredibly dense state that physicists struggle to describe. A fraction of a second of rapid expansion preceded the Big Bang, setting the stage for everything that would follow.

In this new model, the quantum field driving inflation loses some energy to radiation, which then produces dark matter particles through a process called ‘freeze-in’. According to this research, all the dark matter that exists today could have been created during that brief inflationary period.

The study focused on the production of dark matter, but WIFI suggests the production of other particles that could play a role in the early universe’s evolution.

Although currently unconfirmable through direct observation, the theory opens exciting new avenues for exploring the universe’s fundamental building blocks. The researchers are optimistic that upcoming experiments studying the Cosmic Microwave Background and large sale universal structures could provide validation.

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/scientists-may-finally-know-what-existed-before-the-big-bang/ar-AA1vY9Mf?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=51d4d625bcc24515f51422de711080a7&ei=66

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