What Existed Before The Big Bang
Our universe began withThe Big Bang. But what existed before the Big Bang?
From the University ofTexas at Austin, researchers propose that dark matter might have been createdduring a brief, explosive period of expansion called “Cosmic Inflation,” whichoccurred just before the Big Bang. The universe, at that point, would haveconsisted of mostly dark matter, completely undetectable to our eyes.
Scientists believe thatdark matter makes up roughly 85% of all matter. This study suggests that thesubstance existed before the event that many consider the beginning of time.
The model for the studyassumes that dark matter is successfully produced during inflation. In mostmodels, anything that is created during inflation is thinned away by theexpansion of the universe until there is essentially nothing left.
The research introducesa mechanism called WIFI (Warm Inflation Freeze-In), which suggests that darkmatter could have been generated during the universe’s earliest moments throughrare interactions within an incredibly hot and energetic environment.
Cosmologists understandthe universe’s beginning was more complex than a simple explosive moment.Before the Big Bang, matter and energy were compressed into an incredibly densestate that physicists struggle to describe. A fraction of a second of rapidexpansion preceded the Big Bang, setting the stage for everything that wouldfollow.
In this new model, thequantum field driving inflation loses some energy to radiation, which thenproduces dark matter particles through a process called ‘freeze-in’. Accordingto this research, all the dark matter that exists today could have been createdduring that brief inflationary period.
The study focused onthe production of dark matter, but WIFI suggests the production of otherparticles that could play a role in the early universe’s evolution.
Although currentlyunconfirmable through direct observation, the theory opens exciting new avenuesfor exploring the universe’s fundamental building blocks. The researchers areoptimistic that upcoming experiments studying the Cosmic Microwave Backgroundand large sale universal structures could provide validation.
