The question of how the large structures of the universe remain to this day Galaxies or black holesIt’s all a mystery. However, despite the still-unresolved forces, cosmologists in the 80s discovered a key element in this strange formation. Quantum fluctuations.
These elements of quantum physics are energy changes at specific points in spacetime, according to the inflationary model and agency. Sink, the clumps of matter in our universe are decisive in forming what they become. In this sense, the Cosmic inflation is a very popular concept To explain the rapid expansion of the universe in the early moments of its life.
According to studies, it was believed that these structures in the universe, thanks to science, must have evolved much later than that stage. However, magazine Physical review letters has published a detailed study on Presence of large, very ancient structuresThis suggests that the universe is 200 to 400 million years old and “does not fit the predictions of the cosmological standard model,” he says. Sink.
The key to its creation, described by the authors and gathered by the agency, lies in the quantum fluctuations in the inflationary phase, as they explain in detail the existence of observations with “high redshift” – which creates a concept. A reference to the antiquity of astronomical objects – objects that “shouldn’t have been” that formed a few hundred million years after the formation of the universe.
El Gordo, the largest collection of distant galaxies Never observed by existing telescopes, it was discovered in 2014. The cluster is a “very massive object” 6.4 billion years after the Big Bang, which “formed very early and whose existence cannot be explained by previous models,” said Juan García-Pellido, co-author of the study and researcher at the Institute of Theoretical Physics (IFT, Autonomous University of Madrid and Joint Center of CSIC) explains.
These clusters of many tens of thousands of galaxies could not, in theory, have formed until much later. “It was amazing to find such massive objects so quickly. So, an explanation had to be found,” says the physicist.
Several years ago, the authors—including José María Esciaca of the Niels Bohr Institute and Vicente Vennin of the University of Paris—had already recognized the existence of quantum fluctuations in the inflationary phase. This affected the dynamics of the acceleration of the universe.
Before reading and creating this new work, it was believed that the statistical distribution of these quantum fluctuations during inflation produced a very solid map. called the Gaussian bell. But by using equations that allow us to look a little further, the researchers realized that what we actually get is the opposite, a non-Gaussian distribution with a tail.
This indicates that These fluctuations may collapse In large structures, galaxies, clusters or large structures. As with the previous hypothesis, these structures “take a long time to form due to gravity,” explains García-Pellido.
That is, a Gaussian-type function, these structures It takes a long time to developTherefore larger and earlier structures like El Gordo cannot be explained.
Application in James Webb’s Observations
According to the authors, what is interesting about the new proposal is that thanks to these non-Gaussian exponential tails, for example, recent observations can be explained. The James Webb Space Telescope.
Since its launch in early 2022, the lab has been making some very interesting discoveries, which can now be explained by this new result. For example, galaxies with very high redshifts.
Also, as explained by this new result, the formation of larger objects than expected at the beginning of the universe, Helps relieve some tension between observations and our standard cosmological model.
Researchers used computational methods to calculate function, which modified classical evolution. By using the so-called Fokker-Planck equation, taking into account this dynamics of quantum fluctuations, an elliptic and lognormal type function is obtained, not Gaussian type.
This new map provides just that High probability of collapse For very massive objects such as primordial black holes, early galaxies, and the El Gordo cluster.
“It’s important to open our minds to taking non-linear information into account,” agrees García-Pellito. “The new result explains the Gaussianities of large-scale structures that we are finally beginning to measure with galaxy catalogs.” Ultimately, these non-Gaussian tail fluctuations help explain the large-scale behavior of the universe.
In the future, researchers hope Continue to complete the cosmological model Taking into account the observations of deep-sky telescopes is stable, and its formation corresponds to this dynamics of quantum fluctuations in the inflationary phase, the result shows.
The new study also allows for an interesting reflection from the perspective of the history of science. “Decades ago, many years passed between theory and experimental application. For example, the principle of general relativity could not be applied until the 1960s, or was discovered almost half a century after the Higgs theory”, explains García-Pellido.
