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Quantum Equation Suggests Universe Had No Beginning

Posted by Soulskill on from the going-infinite dept.

cyberspittle writes: The universe may have existed forever, according to a new model that applies quantum correction terms to complement Einstein's theory of general relativity. The model may also account for dark matter and dark energy, resolving multiple problems at once. "In addition to not predicting a Big Bang singularity, the new model does not predict a "big crunch" singularity, either. In general relativity, one possible fate of the universe is that it starts to shrink until it collapses in on itself in a big crunch and becomes an infinitely dense point once again. ... In cosmological terms, the scientists explain that the quantum corrections can be thought of as a cosmological constant term (without the need for dark energy) and a radiation term. These terms keep the universe at a finite size, and therefore give it an infinite age. The terms also make predictions that agree closely with current observations of the cosmological constant and density of the universe."

2 of 288 comments (clear)

  1. But... by maugle · · Score: 5, Interesting

    OK, these guys are probably far smarter than I'll ever be, but... the universe clearly isn't staying at a finite size, and playing the universe's expansion in reverse would imply that it started at a single point. How do they account for this? I even went as far as to read the article, but it wasn't mentioned.

    Are they saying that the universe fluctuates between a not-quite-a-singularity tiny point of density and a not-quite-eternally-infinite empty void, or that it simply was a not-quite-a-singularity tiny point of density for an infinite time before it expanded?

  2. Summary of the actual paper by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Suppose the Universe is filled by a Bose-Einstein condensate of gravitons with mass, and that the amplitude of the condensate's wavefunction spans the entire universe.

    Turns out that when you derive the FRW equations from this, doing so inserts a cosmological-constant lookalike into the equation for a''

    So plug the size of the Universe into the Yukawa equation and a graviton mass of 10^-32eV pops out. Plug this into the assumption that the wavefunction is a Gaussian the size of the universe (which makes d'Alembertian proportional to the wavefunction and gives you that nice constant) and you get a cosmological constant that's plausibly near to what we observe.

    Inserting the universe-condensate also creates a second correction term which prevents the FRW scale factor from blowing up or collapsing either in the past or the future, which makes that nasty big bang singularity go away.

    ----------

    It's worth noting that they invoke Bohmian quantum mechanics, which will immediately sketch out a lot of quantum folks...

    What bugs me is that the massive graviton blows up the mass hierarchy problem. It's hard enough to come up with a non-contrived way to have particles whose measured mass ranges from 1eV to 170GeV, but to extend it by 30 orders of magnitude on the light side is just mean.