L'Indipendente

I have been always charmed by the baryon asymmetry, that is, by the fact that the universe that we know is mostly made by matter. In theory there is no reason why we should have not the same amount of matter and antimatter in the universe, but all observations tell us that there is indeed an imbalance in baryonic matter and antibaryonic matter. In fact, neither the general relativity nor the standard model of particle physics provide an explanation of such an asymmetry, even if there are several competing theories that try to explain this fact. For example, there is a theory that assumes a small imbalance between matter and antimatter at the very beginning of universe, the so called baryogenesis, but it does not explain why extra matter was generated. In fact, the theory suggests a significant CP symmetry violation after the Big Bang, but there are no experimental evidences of such event. Therefore, no consensus exists on a single explanation for that phenomenon.

Another interesting fact is that the universe appears to be expanding at an accelerating rate, whereas we expected a quite different behavior. To take in account of such a fact, some scientists speculated about the existence of a strange new form of energy, the so-called dark energy. Recently some cosmologists supposed that if we live in an emptier-than-average region of space, then the cosmic expansion rate may vary with position, which could be mistaken for a variation in time, or acceleration. So there would be no need for an exotic energy of sort.

Last but not least: the Big Bang. According to that cosmological model of the initial conditions and subsequent development of the universe, our cosmos has expanded from a primordial hot and dense initial condition at some finite time in the past, and continues to expand to this day. Note that we are not saying that matter is expanding inside the universe, but the universe itself is expanding, that is, the space-time continuum. But the conservation of energy states that it is not possible to create or destroy energy, so the amount of energy in the current universe must be the same of the beginning, that is, at the Big Bang. But where all that energy would come from? Why there was an infinite density and temperature at that finite time in the past? The Big Bang tells us how the universe arose, but not where it got all that energy from.

So we have three interesting problems: mater-antimatter asymmetry, an accelerating expanding universe, and an incredible amount of energy concentrated in a singularity at the beginning of time. There is currently no theory that is able to explain all those three facts.

I have not a theory too, of course. A scientific theory should be based on observations, should be supported by some good maths, and should be able to recommend some experiment to perform, by providing researchers with expected results, if correct. I have nothing like that. What I have is an intuition, a conjecture. I do not pretend it is more than that, but I decided to publish it anyway, since someone else who is more confident with advanced math and physics might use it as a starting point for a real theory. In the worst of cases, it will be considered just a crazy idea, but if I am right, it could be a significant step forward in understanding our universe.

First of all let us consider the conservation of energy. As I mentioned above, energy cannot be created or destroyed. This is not completely true, anyway, in quantum mechanics. There is a law called the energy-time uncertainty principle whose math representation could be ΔEΔt≥ħ/2. A physical formula is very different from a math formula. It is not simply a relationship among quantities: it must have a physical meaning, that is, it must be interpreted. There were, in fact, several formulations of the energy-time uncertainty principle, and not all of them were true. In the past there were several speculations about the meaning of Δt, for example. According to Einstein and Bohr, a reasonable interpretation of that formula is that a state for a system that only exists for a short time cannot have a definite energy.

According to that formulation, it is possible that in empty space a particle and an anti-particle be generated from vacuum, according that they annihilate each other after an interval of time smaller than ħ/(4×Ep) where Ep is the energy of the particle (or the antiparticle, since they have the same energy). If those particles are charged, for example in case of a virtual electron-positron pair, we have an effect called vacuum polarization.

Now, let us focus on the Big Bang: a singularity with a significant amount of energy... Why? Let us cancel it. Let us suppose that before the universe there was simply... nothing. Quite reasonable, isn't it? Since in quantum mechanics the vacuum is defined as the state with the lowest energy, that is, to first approximation a state with no particles, we can say that at the beginning of universe there were no particles at all. But the universe is made of particles. Where they come from? Well, let us imagine that because of time-energy uncertainty principle a particle and an antiparticle were generated. Each one had the same amount of energy, that is, the total energy of the universe. After a very small period of time, each particle decayed in several other particles: so we had two Big Bangs, that is, a Big Bang and an anti-Big Bang. Each one generating a universe: a matter-based universe and an anti-matter based universe. If the time to decay of the initial particles was smaller than ħ/(4×U), where U is the energy of the universe, no annihilation was anymore possible for the two original particles: two universes were born.

This conjecture does not simply explain why there is a significant asymmetry between matter and anti-matter in our universe, but it answers the third question too, that is, we do not need to justify an enormous amount of energy in the singularity before the Big Bang. So, what about the second question? Well, I have not a precise answer since I am not able to perform the requested calculations, but if an anti-universe was generated at the same time of our universe, it should influence our universe too. We cannot see it because it is behind the Big Bang, from our perspective, but both particles and anti-particles are subject to the same laws, for example, gravitation. Maybe the accelerating rate is related to the influence of the anti-universe on matter-based cosmos, or it could be a consequence of the initial momentum of the original particle, that is, the Big Bang did not arise from a fixed point, but from a particle shot in a specific direction. In such a case the universe might be something different from a sphere. I have not the know-how to calculate it. So, I cannot go further in my conjecture and make it a real theory.

What I hope is that someone else will peek this idea and will demonstrate that is totally crazy or that there is something good in it. I gave my two-cent contribute to a very old debate: the origin of universe. I hope it will be worth the time I spent to publish it.