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Inflaton
The inflaton field is a hypothetical scalar field which is conjectured to have driven cosmic inflation in the very early universe. The field, originally postulated by Alan Guth, provides a mechanism by which a period of rapid expansion from 10−35 to 10−34 seconds after the initial expansion can be generated, forming a universe consistent with observed spatial isotropy and homogeneity. Cosmological inflation The basic model of inflation proceeds in three phases: * Expanding vacuum state with high potential energy * Phase transition to true vacuum * Slow roll and reheating Expanding vacuum state with high potential energy In quantum field theory, a vacuum state or vacuum is a state of quantum fields which is at locally minimal potential energy. Quantum particles are excitations which deviate from this minimal potential energy state, therefore a vacuum state has no particles in it. Depending on the specifics of a quantum field theory, it can have more than ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cosmic Inflation
In physical cosmology, cosmic inflation, cosmological inflation, or just inflation, is a theory of exponential expansion of space in the early universe. The inflationary epoch lasted from seconds after the conjectured Big Bang singularity to some time between and seconds after the singularity. Following the inflationary period, the universe continued to expand, but at a slower rate. The acceleration of this expansion due to dark energy began after the universe was already over 7.7 billion years old (5.4 billion years ago). Inflation theory was developed in the late 1970s and early 80s, with notable contributions by several theoretical physicists, including Alexei Starobinsky at Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics, Alan Guth at Cornell University, and Andrei Linde at Lebedev Physical Institute. Alexei Starobinsky, Alan Guth, and Andrei Linde won the 2014 Kavli Prize "for pioneering the theory of cosmic inflation." It was developed further in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Inflaton Field
The inflaton field is a hypothetical scalar field which is conjectured to have driven cosmic inflation in the very early universe. The field, originally postulated by Alan Guth, provides a mechanism by which a period of rapid expansion from 10−35 to 10−34 seconds after the initial expansion can be generated, forming a universe consistent with observed spatial isotropy and homogeneity. Cosmological inflation The basic model of inflation proceeds in three phases: * Expanding vacuum state with high potential energy * Phase transition to true vacuum * Slow roll and reheating Expanding vacuum state with high potential energy In quantum field theory, a vacuum state or vacuum is a state of quantum fields which is at locally minimal potential energy. Quantum particles are excitations which deviate from this minimal potential energy state, therefore a vacuum state has no particles in it. Depending on the specifics of a quantum field theory, it can have more than on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Higgs Field
The Higgs boson, sometimes called the Higgs particle, is an elementary particle in the Standard Model of particle physics produced by the quantum excitation of the Higgs field, one of the fields in particle physics theory. In the Standard Model, the Higgs particle is a massive scalar boson with zero spin, even (positive) parity, no electric charge, and no colour charge, that couples to (interacts with) mass. It is also very unstable, decaying into other particles almost immediately. The Higgs field is a scalar field, with two neutral and two electrically charged components that form a complex doublet of the weak isospin SU(2) symmetry. Its " Mexican hat-shaped" potential leads it to take a nonzero value ''everywhere'' (including otherwise empty space), which breaks the weak isospin symmetry of the electroweak interaction, and via the Higgs mechanism gives mass to many particles. Both the field and the boson are named after physicist Peter Higgs, who in 1964, along wit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Very Early Universe
The chronology of the universe describes the history and future of the universe according to Big Bang cosmology. Research published in 2015 estimates the earliest stages of the universe's existence as taking place 13.8 billion years ago, with an uncertainty of around 21 million years at the 68% confidence level. The Planck Collaboration in 2015 published the estimate of 13.799 ± 0.021 billion years ago (68% confidence interval). See PDF: page 32, Table 4, Age/Gyr, last column. Outline Chronology in five stages For the purposes of this summary, it is convenient to divide the chronology of the universe since it originated, into five parts. It is generally considered meaningless or unclear whether time existed before this chronology: The very early universe The first picosecond (10−12) of cosmic time. It includes the Planck epoch, during which currently established laws of physics may not apply; the emergence in stages of the four known fundamental interactions or fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metric Expansion Of Space
The expansion of the universe is the increase in distance between any two given gravitationally unbound parts of the observable universe with time. It is an intrinsic expansion whereby the scale of space itself changes. The universe does not expand "into" anything and does not require space to exist "outside" it. This expansion involves neither space nor objects in space "moving" in a traditional sense, but rather it is the metric (which governs the size and geometry of spacetime itself) that changes in scale. As the spatial part of the universe's spacetime metric increases in scale, objects become more distant from one another at ever-increasing speeds. To any observer in the universe, it appears that all of space is expanding, and that all but the nearest galaxies (which are bound by gravity) recede at speeds that are proportional to their distance from the observer. While objects within space cannot travel faster than light, this limitation does not apply to the effects of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cosmological Constant
In cosmology, the cosmological constant (usually denoted by the Greek capital letter lambda: ), alternatively called Einstein's cosmological constant, is the constant coefficient of a term that Albert Einstein temporarily added to his field equations of general relativity. He later removed it. Much later it was revived and reinterpreted as the energy density of space, or vacuum energy, that arises in quantum mechanics. It is closely associated with the concept of dark energy. Einstein originally introduced the constant in 1917 to counterbalance the effect of gravity and achieve a static universe, a notion that was the accepted view at the time. Einstein's cosmological constant was abandoned after Edwin Hubble's confirmation that the universe was expanding. From the 1930s until the late 1990s, most physicists agreed with Einstein's choice of setting the cosmological constant to zero. That changed with the discovery in 1998 that the expansion of the universe is accelerating ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fermion
In particle physics, a fermion is a particle that follows Fermi–Dirac statistics. Generally, it has a half-odd-integer spin: spin , spin , etc. In addition, these particles obey the Pauli exclusion principle. Fermions include all quarks and leptons and all composite particles made of an odd number of these, such as all baryons and many atoms and nuclei. Fermions differ from bosons, which obey Bose–Einstein statistics. Some fermions are elementary particles (such as electrons), and some are composite particles (such as protons). For example, according to the spin-statistics theorem in relativistic quantum field theory, particles with integer spin are bosons. In contrast, particles with half-integer spin are fermions. In addition to the spin characteristic, fermions have another specific property: they possess conserved baryon or lepton quantum numbers. Therefore, what is usually referred to as the spin-statistics relation is, in fact, a spin statistics-quantum ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cosmological Constant Problem
In cosmology, the cosmological constant problem or vacuum catastrophe is the disagreement between the observed values of vacuum energy density (the small value of the cosmological constant) and theoretical large value of zero-point energy suggested by quantum field theory. Depending on the Planck energy cutoff and other factors, the quantum vacuum energy contribution to the effective cosmological constant is calculated to be as little as 50 and as much as 120 orders of magnitude greater than observed, a state of affairs described by physicists as "the largest discrepancy between theory and experiment in all of science" and "the worst theoretical prediction in the history of physics". History The basic problem of a vacuum energy producing a gravitational effect was identified as early as 1916 by Walther Nernst. He predicted that the value had to be either zero or very small. In 1926, W. Lenz concluded that "If one allows waves of the shortest observed wavelengths λ ≈ 2 � ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gravity
In physics, gravity () is a fundamental interaction which causes mutual attraction between all things with mass or energy. Gravity is, by far, the weakest of the four fundamental interactions, approximately 1038 times weaker than the strong interaction, 1036 times weaker than the electromagnetic force and 1029 times weaker than the weak interaction. As a result, it has no significant influence at the level of subatomic particles. However, gravity is the most significant interaction between objects at the macroscopic scale, and it determines the motion of planets, stars, galaxies, and even light. On Earth, gravity gives weight to physical objects, and the Moon's gravity is responsible for sublunar tides in the oceans (the corresponding antipodal tide is caused by the inertia of the Earth and Moon orbiting one another). Gravity also has many important biological functions, helping to guide the growth of plants through the process of gravitropism and influencing th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scalar Field Theory
In theoretical physics, scalar field theory can refer to a relativistically invariant classical or quantum theory of scalar fields. A scalar field is invariant under any Lorentz transformation. The only fundamental scalar quantum field that has been observed in nature is the Higgs field. However, scalar quantum fields feature in the effective field theory descriptions of many physical phenomena. An example is the pion, which is actually a pseudoscalar. Since they do not involve polarization complications, scalar fields are often the easiest to appreciate second quantization through. For this reason, scalar field theories are often used for purposes of introduction of novel concepts and techniques. The signature of the metric employed below is . Classical scalar field theory A general reference for this section is Ramond, Pierre (2001-12-21). Field Theory: A Modern Primer (Second Edition). USA: Westview Press. , Ch 1. Linear (free) theory The most basic scalar field the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coupling Constant
In physics, a coupling constant or gauge coupling parameter (or, more simply, a coupling), is a number that determines the strength of the force exerted in an interaction. Originally, the coupling constant related the force acting between two static bodies to the "charges" of the bodies (i.e. the electric charge for electrostatic and the mass for Newtonian gravity) divided by the distance squared, r^2, between the bodies; thus: G in F=G m_1 m_2/r^2 for Newtonian gravity and k_\text in F=k_\textq_1 q_2/r^2 for electrostatic. This description remains valid in modern physics for linear theories with static bodies and massless force carriers. A modern and more general definition uses the Lagrangian \mathcal (or equivalently the Hamiltonian \mathcal) of a system. Usually, \mathcal (or \mathcal) of a system describing an interaction can be separated into a ''kinetic part'' T and an ''interaction part'' V: \mathcal=T-V (or \mathcal=T+V). In field theory, V always contains 3 fields ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
