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Higgs Data Could Spell Trouble For Leading Big Bang Theory
ananyo writes "Paul Steinhardt, an astrophysicist at Princeton University in New Jersey, and colleagues have posted a controversial paper on ArXiv arguing, based on the latest Higgs data and the cosmic microwave background map from the Planck mission, that the leading theory explaining the first moments of the Big Bang ('inflation') is fatally flawed. In short, Steinhardt says that the models that best fit the Planck data — known as 'plateau models' because their potential-energy profiles level off at relatively low energies — are far less likely to occur naturally than the models that Planck ruled out. Secondly, he says, the news for these plateau models gets dramatically worse when the results are analyzed in conjunction with the latest results about the Higgs field coming from CERN's Large Hadron Collider. Particle physicists working at the LHC have calculated that the Higgs field is likely to have started out in a high-energy, 'metastable' state rather than in a stable, low-energy configuration. Steinhardt likens the odds of the Higgs field initially being perched in the precarious metastable state as to those of dropping out of the sky over the Matterhorn and conveniently landing in a 'dimple near the top,' rather than crashing down to the mountain's base."
It's called a False Vacuum, and yes, it's quite the possible doomsday scenario.
If you read further down in TFA, you find that this Princeton professor has spent years trying to push his cyclical universe model over the inflationary Big Bang, and experimental results have not been kind to him. In fact, there's no actual mention of the Higgs data playing any part in discrediting the Big Bang here. The entire piece seems to hinge on his saying it's "unlikely" rather than any actual observations.
Everything is better with chainsaws.
I beleive the leading guess is that the universe expands to its limit, then gravity asserts itself, causing all matter in the universe to compress into an unstable singularity.
No, current observations and theories place the energy density of the universe at below critical value, i.e. it won't re-compress and will keep expanding forever. Actually, thanks to dark energy, the expansion is accelerating (although since we don't know what dark energy is, yet, whether that will continue or even reverse is a very much open question).
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
No - the LHCb data has ruled out large swathes of SUSY parameter space but has certainly not come close to ruling out SUSY. You can hide SUSY from indirect searches like Bs->mu mu by e.g. making SUSY have the same flavour symmetry as the Standard Model. So these searches are incredibly useful at limiting the SUSY parameter space but to really know whether SUSY is there you have to look for direct evidence. I'll start being sceptical of SUSY if after 2-3 years of running the LHC at 13-14 TeV we still see nothing...at that point we will start to have interesting questions about Dark Matter as well if we have not seen it.