From The Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (IPMU) [カブリ数物連携宇宙研](JP) at The University of Tokyo [東京大学](JP): “Researchers create ‘time machine’ simulations studying the lifecycle of ancestor galaxy cities”

From The Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (IPMU) [カブリ数物連携宇宙研](JP) at The University of Tokyo [東京大学](JP)

June 6, 2022

Research contact
Metin Ata
Project Researcher
Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU), The University of Tokyo
E-mail：metin.ata@ipmu.jp

Media contact
Motoko Kakubayashi
Press officer
Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU), The University of Tokyo
E-mail：press@ipmu.jp

For the first time, researchers have created simulations that directly recreate the full life cycle of some of the largest collections of galaxies observed in the distant universe 11 billion years ago, reports a new study in Nature Astronomy.

Figure 1: Screenshots from the simulation show (top) the distribution of matter corresponding to the observed galaxy distribution at a light travel time of 11 billion years (when the Universe was only 2.76 billion years old or 20% its current age), and (bottom) the distribution of matter in the same region after 11 billion lights years or corresponding to our present time. (Credit: Ata et al.)

Cosmological simulations are crucial to studying how the universe became the shape it is today, but many do not typically match what astronomers observe through telescopes. Most are designed to match the real universe only in a statistical sense. Constrained cosmological simulations, on the other hand, are designed to directly reproduce the structures we actually observe in the universe. However, most existing simulations of this kind have been applied to our local universe, meaning close to Earth, but never for observations of the distant universe.

A team of researchers, led by Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe Project Researcher and first author Metin Ata and Project Assistant Professor Khee-Gan Lee, were interested in distant structures like massive galaxy protoclusters, which are ancestors of present-day galaxy clusters before they could clump under their own gravity. They found current studies of distant protoclusters were sometimes oversimplified, meaning they were done with simple models and not simulations.

“We wanted to try developing a full simulation of the real distant universe to see how structures started out and how they ended,” said Ata.

Their result was COSTCO (COnstrained Simulations of The COsmos Field).

Lee said developing the simulation was much like building a time machine. Because light from the distant universe is only reaching Earth now, the galaxies telescopes observe today are a snapshot of the past.

“It’s like finding an old black-and-white picture of your grandfather and creating a video of his life,” he said.

In this sense, the researchers took snapshots of “young” grandparent galaxies in the universe and then fast forwarded their age to study how clusters of galaxies would form.

The light from galaxies the researchers used traveled a distance of 11 billion light-years to reach us.

What was most challenging was taking the large scale environment into account.

“This is something that is very important for the fate of those structures whether they are isolated or associated with a bigger structure. If you don’t take the environment into account, then you get completely different answers. We were able to take the large scale environment into account consistently, because we have a full simulation, and that’s why our prediction is more stable,” said Ata.

Another important reason why the researchers created these simulations was to test the standard model of cosmology, that is used to describe the physics of the universe.

National Aeronautics Space AgencyWilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Standard Model of Cosmology.

By predicting the final mass and final distribution of structures in a given space, researchers could unveil previously undetected discrepancies in our current understanding of the universe.

Using their simulations, the researchers were able to find evidence of three already published galaxy protoclusters and disfavor one structure. On top of that, they were able to identify five more structures that consistently formed in their simulations. This includes the Hyperion proto-supercluster, the largest and earliest proto-supercluster known today that is 5000 times the mass of our Milky Way galaxy, which the researchers found out it will collapse into a large 300 million light year filament.

Their work is already being applied to other projects including those to study the cosmological environment of galaxies, and absorption lines of distant quasars to name a few.

Details of their study were published in Nature Astronomy on 2 June, 2022.

total collapse v5b

See the full article here .

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Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

The Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (IPMU) [カブリ数物連携宇宙研](JP) at The University of Tokyo [東京大学](JP) is an international research institute with English as its official language. The goal of the institute is to discover the fundamental laws of nature and to understand the Universe from the synergistic perspectives of mathematics, astronomy, and theoretical and experimental physics. The Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (IPMU) was established in October 2007 under the World Premier International Research Center Initiative (WPI) of the Ministry of Education, Sports, Science and Technology in Japan with the University of Tokyo as the host institution. IPMU was designated as the first research institute within the University of Tokyo Institutes for Advanced Study (UTIAS) in January 2011. It received an endowment from The Kavli Foundation and was renamed the “Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe” in April 2012. Kavli IPMU is located on the Kashiwa campus of the University of Tokyo, and more than half of its full-time scientific members come from outside Japan. http://www.ipmu.jp/

The Kavli Foundation, based in Oxnard, California, is dedicated to the goals of advancing science for the benefit of humanity and promoting increased public understanding and support for scientists and their work.

The Foundation’s mission is implemented through an international program of research institutes, professorships, and symposia in the fields of astrophysics, nanoscience, neuroscience, and theoretical physics as well as prizes in the fields of astrophysics, nanoscience, and neuroscience.

From The Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (IPMU) [カブリ数物連携宇宙研](JP) at The University of Tokyo [東京大学](JP): “Researchers hunt for one-pole magnets by combining cosmic rays and particle accelerators”

From The Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (IPMU) [カブリ数物連携宇宙研](JP) at The University of Tokyo [東京大学](JP)

May 26, 2022

Research contact
Volodymyr Takhistov
Project Researcher / Kavli IPMU Fellow
Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU), The University of Tokyo
E-mail：volodymyr.takhistov@ipmu.jp

Media contact
Motoko Kakubayashi
Press officer
Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU), The University of Tokyo
E-mail：press@ipmu.jp

Some of the world’s most powerful particle accelerators have helped researchers draw new leading limits on the existence of long theorized magnetic monopoles from the collisions of energetic cosmic rays bombarding the Earth’s atmosphere, reports a new study published in Physical Review Letters.

Figure 1. Schematic illustration of magnetic compass and hypothetical magnetic monopole (Credit: Kavli IPMU)

Magnets are intimately familiar to everyone, with wide-ranging applications within daily life, from TVs and computers to kids toys. However, breaking any magnet, such as a navigation compass needle consisting of north and south poles in half, will result in just two smaller two-pole magnets. This mystery has eluded researchers for decades since 1931, when physicist Paul Dirac theorized the existence of one-pole “magnetic monopoles” – particles comparable to electrons but with a magnetic charge.

To explore whether magnetic monopoles exist, an international team of researchers, including the University of Tokyo’s Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU) Fellow Volodymyr Takhistov, studied available data from a variety of terrestrial experiments and have carried out the most sensitive searches to date for monopoles over a broad range of possible masses. The researchers focused on an unusual source of monopoles – atmospheric collisions of cosmic rays that have been occurring for eons.

Cosmic rays produced by high-energy astrophysics sources ASPERA collaboration AStroParticle ERAnet.

The interdisciplinary research required bringing together expertise from several distinct corners of science – including accelerator physics, neutrino interactions and cosmic rays.

Cosmic ray collisions with the atmosphere have already played a central role in advancing science, especially the exploration of ghostly neutrinos. This lead to Kavli IPMU Senior Fellow Takaaki Kajita’s 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery by the Super-Kamiokande experiment that neutrinos oscillate in flight, implying that they have mass.

Neutrinos. Credit: J-PARC T2K Neutrino Experiment.

Super-Kamiokande experiment. located under Mount Ikeno near the city of Hida, Gifu Prefecture, Japan

Partially inspired by the results of Super-Kamiokande, the team set to work on monopoles. Particularly intriguing were light monopoles with masses around the electroweak scale, which can be readily accessible to conventional particle accelerators.

By carrying out simulations of cosmic ray collisions, analogously to particle collisions at the LHC at CERN, the researchers obtained a persistent beam of light monopoles raining down upon different terrestrial experiments.

Figure 2. A schematic illustration of magnetic monopole (M) production from collisions of cosmic rays with the Earth’s atmosphere. (Credit: Volodymyr Takhistov)

This unique source of monopoles is especially interesting, as it is independent of any pre-existing monopoles such as those potentially left over as relics from the early Universe, and covers a broad range of energies.

By re-analyzing data from a wide range of previous experimental monopole searches, the researchers identified novel limits on monopoles across a wide range of masses, including those beyond the reach of conventional collider monopole searches.

These results and source of monopoles studied by the researchers will serve as a useful benchmark for interpreting subsequent future monopole searches at terrestrial laboratories.

Details of their study were published in Physical Review Letters on 17 May, 2022.

See the full article here .

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Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

The Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (IPMU) [カブリ数物連携宇宙研](JP) at The University of Tokyo [東京大学](JP) is an international research institute with English as its official language. The goal of the institute is to discover the fundamental laws of nature and to understand the Universe from the synergistic perspectives of mathematics, astronomy, and theoretical and experimental physics. The Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (IPMU) was established in October 2007 under the World Premier International Research Center Initiative (WPI) of the Ministry of Education, Sports, Science and Technology in Japan with the University of Tokyo as the host institution. IPMU was designated as the first research institute within the University of Tokyo Institutes for Advanced Study (UTIAS) in January 2011. It received an endowment from The Kavli Foundation and was renamed the “Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe” in April 2012. Kavli IPMU is located on the Kashiwa campus of the University of Tokyo, and more than half of its full-time scientific members come from outside Japan.

The Kavli Foundation, based in Oxnard, California, is dedicated to the goals of advancing science for the benefit of humanity and promoting increased public understanding and support for scientists and their work.

The Foundation’s mission is implemented through an international program of research institutes, professorships, and symposia in the fields of astrophysics, nanoscience, neuroscience, and theoretical physics as well as prizes in the fields of astrophysics, nanoscience, and neuroscience.

From The Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (IPMU) [カブリ数物連携宇宙研](JP) at The University of Tokyo [東京大学](JP): “New theory finds upcoming satellite mission will be able to detect more than expected”

From The Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (IPMU) [カブリ数物連携宇宙研](JP) at The University of Tokyo [東京大学](JP)

The upcoming satellite experiment LiteBIRD is expected to probe the physics of the very early Universe if the primordial inflation happened at high energies.

JAXA LiteBIRD Kavli IPMU

But now, a new paper in Physical Review Letters shows it can also test inflationary scenarios operating at lower energies.

The green line is the lowest signal the LiteBIRD can still observe, so any observable signal should be above that line. The red and black lines are the team’s predictions for two different parameter specifications in their model, showing detection is possible. In contrast, the more standard inflationary models operating at the same energy as the team’s mechanism predict the lower gray (dashed) line, which is below the sensitivity limit of LiteBIRD. (Credit: Cai et al.)

Cosmologists believe that in its very early stages, the Universe underwent a very rapid expansion called “cosmic inflation”.

_____________________________________________________________________________________
Inflation

Alan Guth, from M.I.T., who first proposed cosmic inflation.

Lamda Cold Dark Matter Accerated Expansion of The universe http scinotions.com the-cosmic-inflation-suggests-the-existence-of-parallel-universes. Credit: Alex Mittelmann.

Alan Guth’s notes:
Alan Guth’s original notes on inflation.
_____________________________________________________________________________________

A success story of this hypothesis is that even the simplest inflationary models are able to accurately predict the inhomogeneous distribution of matter in the Universe. During inflation, these vacuum fluctuations were stretched to astronomical scales, becoming the source all the structure in the Universe, including the Cosmic Microwave Background [CMB] anisotropies, distribution of Dark Matter and galaxies.

CMB per European Space Agency(EU) Planck.

The same mechanism also produced gravitational waves.

Gravitational waves. Credit: W.Benger-Zib. MPG Institute for Gravitational Physics (DE)

These gravitational wave propagating ripples of space and time are important for understanding the physics during the inflationary epoch. In general, detecting these gravitational waves is considered determining the energy at which inflation took place. It is also linked to how much the inflation field-or the energy source of inflation-can change during inflation — a relation referred to as the “Lyth bound”.

An artist’s conception of how gravitational waves distort the shape of space and time in the universe (Credit: Kavli IPMU).

The primordial gravitational waves generated from vacuum are extremely weak, and are very difficult to detect, but the JAXA-led LiteBIRD mission might be able to detect them via the polarization measurements of the Cosmic Microwave Background. Because of this, understanding primordial gravitational waves theoretically is gaining interest so any potential detection by LiteBIRD can be interpreted. It is expected LiteBIRD will be able to detect primordial gravitational waves if inflation happened at sufficiently high energies.

Several inflationary models constructed in the framework of quantum gravity often predict very low energy scale for inflation, and so would be untestable by LiteBIRD. However, a new study by researchers, including the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU), has shown the opposite. The researchers argue such scenarios of fundamental importance can be tested by LiteBIRD, if they are accompanied by additional fields, sourcing gravitational waves.

The researchers suggest an idea, logically very different from the usual.

“Within our framework in addition to the gravitational waves originating from vacuum fluctuations, a large amount of gravitational waves can be sourced by the quantum vacuum fluctuations of additional fields during inflation. Due to this we were able to produce an observable amount of gravitational waves even if inflation takes place at lower energies.

“The quantum fluctuations of scalar fields during inflation are typically small, and such induced gravitational waves are not relevant in standard inflationary scenarios. However, if the fluctuations of the additional fields are enhanced, they can source a significant amount of gravitational waves,” said paper author and Kavli IPMU Project Researcher Valeri Vardanyan.

Other researchers have been working on related ideas, but so far no successful mechanism based on scalar fields alone had been found.

“The main problem is that when you generate gravitational waves from enhanced fluctuations of additional fields, you also simultaneously generate extra curvature fluctuations, which would make the Universe appear more clumpy than it is in reality. We elegantly decoupled the generation of the two types of fluctuations and solved this problem,” said Vardanyan.

In their paper, the researchers proposed a proof-of-concept based on two scalar fields operating during inflation.

“Imagine a car with two engines, corresponding to the two fields of our model. One of the engines is connected to the wheels of the car, while the other one is not. The first one is responsible for moving the car, and, when on a muddy road, for generating all the traces on the road. These represent the seeds of structure in the Universe. The second engine is only producing sound. This represents the gravitational waves, and does not contribute to the movement of the car, or the generation of traces on the road,” said Vardanyan.

The team quantitatively demonstrated their mechanism works, and even calculated the predictions of their model for the upcoming LiteBIRD mission.

See the full article here .

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

The Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (IPMU) [カブリ数物連携宇宙研](JP) at The University of Tokyo [東京大学](JP) is an international research institute with English as its official language. The goal of the institute is to discover the fundamental laws of nature and to understand the Universe from the synergistic perspectives of mathematics, astronomy, and theoretical and experimental physics. The Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (IPMU) was established in October 2007 under the World Premier International Research Center Initiative (WPI) of the Ministry of Education, Sports, Science and Technology in Japan with the University of Tokyo as the host institution. IPMU was designated as the first research institute within the University of Tokyo Institutes for Advanced Study (UTIAS) in January 2011. It received an endowment from The Kavli Foundation and was renamed the “Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe” in April 2012. Kavli IPMU is located on the Kashiwa campus of the University of Tokyo, and more than half of its full-time scientific members come from outside Japan. http://www.ipmu.jp/

The Kavli Foundation, based in Oxnard, California, is dedicated to the goals of advancing science for the benefit of humanity and promoting increased public understanding and support for scientists and their work.

The Foundation’s mission is implemented through an international program of research institutes, professorships, and symposia in the fields of astrophysics, nanoscience, neuroscience, and theoretical physics as well as prizes in the fields of astrophysics, nanoscience, and neuroscience.

From The Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (IPMU) [カブリ数物連携宇宙研](JP) at The University of Tokyo [東京大学](JP): “Researchers capture fastest optical flash emitted from a newborn supernova”

From The Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (IPMU) [カブリ数物連携宇宙研](JP) at The University of Tokyo [東京大学](JP)

December 9, 2021

Research contact
Ji-an Jiang
Project Researcher
Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe, The University of Tokyo
E-mail: jian.jiang@ipmu.jp

Media contact
Motoko Kakubayashi
Press officer
Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe, The University of Tokyo
E-mail: press@ipmu.jp
TEL: 080-4056-2767

Figure 1: Upper panels: The first three-nights observations of a peculiar Type Ia supernova, Tomo-e202004aaelb (SN 2020hvf), with the Tomo-e Gozen Camera. Low panels: Schematic light curves of Tomo-e202004aaelb (green circles denote the stages that the supernova was staying during the corresponding upper panel observations). (Credit: Kavli IPMU, The University of Tokyo)

Figure 2: The astronomical art of the high energy released from an interaction between a confined CSM (torus-like) and supernova ejecta soon after the white dwarf explosion. (Credit: Kiso Observatory, The University of Tokyo)

Kiso Observatory in Tokiwa.

A team of astronomers have discovered the fastest optical flash of a Type Ia supernova, reports a study in The Astrophysical Journal Letters published on December 8, 2021.

Many stars end their lives through a spectacular explosion. Most massive stars will explode as a supernova. Though a white dwarf star is the remnant of an intermediate mass star like our Sun, it can explode if the star is part of a close binary star system, where two stars orbit around each other. This type of supernovae is classified as Type Ia supernovae.

Because of the uniform and extremely high brightness of the Type Ia supernova, which is about 5 billion times brighter than our Sun, they are widely used by researchers as a standard candle for distance measurements in astronomy. As the most successful example Type Ia supernovae helped researchers discover the accelerating expansion of our universe. But despite the great success of the Type Ia supernova cosmology, researchers are still puzzled by basic questions such as what the progenitor systems of Type Ia supernovae are, and how Type Ia supernova explosions are ignited.

To figure out these long-standing issues, a team of astronomers, led by Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU) Project Researcher Ji-an Jiang, attempted to catch Type Ia supernovae within one day of their explosions, called early-phase Type Ia supernovae, using new-generation wide-field survey facilities, including the Tomo-e Gozen camera, the first wide-field mosaic CMOS sensor imager in the world.

By regularly checking early-phase supernova candidates discovered by the Tomo-e transient survey, one transient, Tomo-e202004aaelb, caught Jiang’s attention.

“Tomo-e202004aaelb was discovered with high brightness on April 21 in 2020. Surprisingly, its brightness showed significant variation in the next two days and then behaved like a normal early-phase Type Ia supernova. We have discovered several early-phase Type Ia supernovae that show interesting excess emission in the first few days of their explosions but have never seen such a fast and prominent early emission in optical wavelengths. Thanks to the high-cadence survey mode and the excellent performance of Tomo-e Gozen, we can perfectly catch this amazing feature for the first time. Such a prompt early flash should originate from a different origin compared to previously dis covered early-excess Type Ia supernovae,” said Jiang.

Computational simulations by Kyoto University Associate Professor Keiichi Maeda showed that the origin of the mysterious fast optical flash can be explained by the energy released from an interaction between supernova ejecta and a dense and confined circumstellar material (CSM) soon after the supernova explosion.

“We have not seen such a short and bright flash from Type Ia supernovae before, even with a recently increasing number of very early discoveries soon after the supernova explosion in the last few years, including those discovered by our team. The nature of the CSM must reflect the nature of the progenitor star, and thus this is a key to understanding what kind of a star explodes and how they do so. A question is what makes this supernova so special,” said Maeda.

Through spectroscopic observations by the Seimei telescope of Kyoto University, the team found that the SN is a variant of brightest Type Ia supernovae.

KYOTO UNIVERSITY[京都大学](JP) 3.8-m Seimei telescope.

“At the first look of the spectrum taken just after the initial flash, it stood out as something different from normal supernovae. We noticed that a brightest class of Type Ia supernovae might look like this one if they would be observed in such an early phase. Our classification was subsequently confirmed as the spectra evolve to look more and more similar to the previously found bright Type Ia supernovae,” said Kyoto University Project Researcher Miho Kawabata.

The team’s result shows at least a fraction of Type Ia supernovae originate from a dense CSM environment, which provides a stringent constraint on the progenitor system of these spectacular phenomena in our universe. Given that Tomo-e202004aaelb (SN 2020hvf) is much brighter than typical Type Ia supernovae used as the distance indicator, the discovery will enable Jiang and his collaborators to test various theories which have been proposed for these peculiar overluminous Type Ia supernovae.

“Previously, we have constructed theoretical models of super-Chandrasekhar-mass rotating white dwarfs and their explosions. Such massive models can be consistent with the peak brightness of SN 2020hvf, but more theoretical work is necessary to explain the detailed observational properties. SN 2020hvf has provided a wonderful opportunity of collaboration between the theory and observations.” said Kavli IPMU Senior Scientist Ken’ichi Nomoto.

Jiang’s team will continue looking for the answer of the long-standing origin issue of Type Ia supernovae by carrying out transient surveys with telescopes all over the world.

“We have used Type Ia supernovae to measure the expansion of the universe, although their origins are not well understood. The early-phase photometry of Type Ia supernovae provides unique information to understand their origins, and hence, should contribute to more accurate measurements of the expansion of the universe in near future,” said Kavli IPMU Senior Scientist and University of Tokyo Professor Mamoru Doi.

[See the full article for a list of the science team and their affiliated organizations.]

See the full article here .

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

The Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (IPMU) [カブリ数物連携宇宙研](JP) at The University of Tokyo [東京大学](JP) is an international research institute with English as its official language. The goal of the institute is to discover the fundamental laws of nature and to understand the Universe from the synergistic perspectives of mathematics, astronomy, and theoretical and experimental physics. The Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (IPMU) was established in October 2007 under the World Premier International Research Center Initiative (WPI) of the Ministry of Education, Sports, Science and Technology in Japan with the University of Tokyo as the host institution. IPMU was designated as the first research institute within the University of Tokyo Institutes for Advanced Study (UTIAS) in January 2011. It received an endowment from The Kavli Foundation and was renamed the “Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe” in April 2012. Kavli IPMU is located on the Kashiwa campus of the University of Tokyo, and more than half of its full-time scientific members come from outside Japan. http://www.ipmu.jp/

The Kavli Foundation, based in Oxnard, California, is dedicated to the goals of advancing science for the benefit of humanity and promoting increased public understanding and support for scientists and their work.

The Foundation’s mission is implemented through an international program of research institutes, professorships, and symposia in the fields of astrophysics, nanoscience, neuroscience, and theoretical physics as well as prizes in the fields of astrophysics, nanoscience, and neuroscience.

From The Kavli Institute for The Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (IPMU) [カブリ数物連携宇宙研](JP) at The University of Tokyo [東京大学](JP): “Gravitational waves could be key to answering why more matter was left over after Big Bang”

From The Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (IPMU) [カブリ数物連携宇宙研](JP) at The University of Tokyo [東京大学](JP)

December 8, 2021

Asymmetry in the universe may have been the result of the following process: (1) The potential for the inflation has a shape and starts away from its minimum. (2) At the end of inflation a field starts rolling around to its minimum. (3) In different patches blobs of field appear. (4) These blobs melt so fast they practically vanish. (5) This sudden vanishing results in enhanced ripples in space and time. Graham et al. suggest these ripples could be detected by gravitational wave detectors. (Credit: Kavli IPMU)

A team of theoretical researchers have found it might be possible to detect Q-balls in gravitational waves and their detection would answer why more matter than anti-matter to be left over after the Big Bang, reports a new study in Physical Review Letters.

The reason humans exist is because at some time in the first second of the Universe’s existence, somehow more matter was produced than anti-matter. The asymmetry is so small that only one extra particle of matter was produced every time ten billion particles of anti matter were produced. The problem is that even though this asymmetry is small, current theories of physics cannot explain it. In fact, standard theories say matter and anti matter should have been produced in exactly equal quantities, but the existence of humans, Earth, and everything else in the universe proves there must be more, undiscovered physics.

Currently, a popular idea shared by researchers is that this asymmetry was produced just after inflation, a period in the early universe when there was a very rapid expansion.

_____________________________________________________________________________________
Inflation

Alan Guth, from M.I.T., who first proposed cosmic inflation

Lamda Cold Dark Matter Accerated Expansion of The universe http scinotions.com the-cosmic-inflation-suggests-the-existence-of-parallel-universes. Credit: Alex Mittelmann.

Alan Guth’s notes:
Alan Guth’s original notes on inflation
_____________________________________________________________________________________

A blob of field could have stretched out over the horizon to evolve and fragment in just the right way to produce this asymmetry.

But testing this paradigm directly has been difficult, even using the largest particle accelerators in the world, since the energy involved is billions to trillions of times higher than anything humans can produce on Earth.

Now, a team of researchers in Japan and the US, including Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe Project Researcher Graham White, and Visiting Senior Scientist Alexander Kusenko, who is also a Professor of Physics and Astronomy at
The University of California at Los Angeles(US), have found a new way to test this proposal by using blobs of field known as Q-balls.

The nature of Q-balls is a bit tricky to understand, but they are bosons like the Higgs boson, explains Graham White, lead author and Project Researcher at Kavli IPMU.

European Organization for Nuclear Research [Organisation européenne pour la recherche nucléaire] [Europäische Organisation für Kernforschung](CH) ATLAS Higgs Event

European Organization for Nuclear Research [Organisation européenne pour la recherche nucléaire] [Europäische Organisation für Kernforschung](CH) CMS Higgs Event May 27, 2012.

“A Higgs particle exists when the Higgs field is excited. But the Higgs field can do other things, like form a lump. If you have a field that is very like the Higgs field but it has some sort of charge – not an electric charge, but some sort of charge – then one lump has the charge as one particle. Since charge can’t just disappear, the field has to decide whether to be in particles or lumps. If it is lower energy to be in lumps than particles, then the field will do that. A bunch of lumps coagulating together will make a Q-ball.”

“We argue that very often these blobs of field known as Q-balls stick around for some time. These Q-balls dilute slower than the background soup of radiation as the Universe expands until, eventually, most of the energy in the Universe is in these blobs. In the meantime, slight fluctuations in the density of the soup of radiation start to grow when these blobs dominate. When the Q-balls decay, their decay is so sudden and rapid that the fluctuations in the plasma become violent soundwaves which leads to spectacular ripples in space and time, known as gravitational waves, that could be detected over the next few decades. The beauty of looking for gravitational waves is that the Universe is completely transparent to gravitational waves all the way back to the beginning,” said White.

The researchers also found the conditions to create these ripples are very common, and the resulting gravitational waves should be large enough, and low enough frequency to be detected by conventional gravitational wave detectors.

“If this is how the asymmetry was made it is almost certain that we will soon detect a signal from the beginning of time confirming this theory on why we, and the rest of the world of matter, exist at all,” said White.

About the science paper:
Authors: Graham White (1), Lauren Pearce (2), Daniel Vagie (3), and Alexander Kusenko (4,1)

Author affiliations:
1. Kavli IPMU (WPI), UTIAS, The University of Tokyo
2. The Pennsylvania State University (US)
3. Department of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Oklahoma (US)
4. Department of Physics and Astronomy, The University of California-Los Angeles (US)

See the full article here .

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (IPMU) [カブリ数物連携宇宙研](JP) at The University of Tokyo [東京大学](JP) is an international research institute with English as its official language. The goal of the institute is to discover the fundamental laws of nature and to understand the Universe from the synergistic perspectives of mathematics, astronomy, and theoretical and experimental physics. The Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (IPMU) was established in October 2007 under the World Premier International Research Center Initiative (WPI) of the Ministry of Education, Sports, Science and Technology in Japan with the University of Tokyo as the host institution. IPMU was designated as the first research institute within the University of Tokyo Institutes for Advanced Study (UTIAS) in January 2011. It received an endowment from The Kavli Foundation and was renamed the “Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe” in April 2012. Kavli IPMU is located on the Kashiwa campus of the University of Tokyo, and more than half of its full-time scientific members come from outside Japan. http://www.ipmu.jp/

The Kavli Foundation, based in Oxnard, California, is dedicated to the goals of advancing science for the benefit of humanity and promoting increased public understanding and support for scientists and their work.

The Foundation’s mission is implemented through an international program of research institutes, professorships, and symposia in the fields of astrophysics, nanoscience, neuroscience, and theoretical physics as well as prizes in the fields of astrophysics, nanoscience, and neuroscience.