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."

Comments

Re:So, in other words....

[Baloroth]

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).