The History of The Universe

David H.
Lyth
The History
of the
Universe
Astronomers Universe
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/6960
David H. Lyth
The History of the Universe
123
David H. Lyth
Physics
Lancaster University
Lancaster, United Kingdom
ISSN 1614-659X ISSN 2197-6651 (electronic)

Astronomers Universe
ISBN 978-3-319-22743-6 ISBN 978-3-319-22744-3 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-22744-3
Library of Congress Control Number: 2015950857
Springer Cham Heidelberg New York Dordrecht London

Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016
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Foreword
The way we view our world is changing dramatically. In the beginning of the
previous century, we did not even know that other galaxies exist; some prominent
astronomers thought that the Milky Way galaxy is the whole Universe. Indeed, our
galaxy is incredibly large. It consists of about a hundred billion stars, many of which
have planetary systems. Can we imagine anything bigger than that? Well, now we
know that there are about a hundred billion of galaxies in the observable part of the
Universe.
For a long time people believed that the Universe is static. Indeed, what else could
it be? When we study physics at school, our teachers show us a three-dimensional
reference frame with axes labeled by x, y, and z and explain how one can describe
motion of particles with respect to it. This suggests that space and time are just
a static set of coordinates. This picture was challenged by Albert Einstein in his
general theory of relativity, but the consequences of this change were so dramatic
that even Einstein could not fully appreciate it. When a mathematician Alexander
Friedmann solved Einsteins equations and found that they describe an expanding
Universe, Einstein at first thought that this was a mistake, and then he attempted to
modify his own theory in an effort to make the Universe static.
Later on, thanks to the observations made by Edwin Hubble, we learned that
galaxies move away from each other, and the theory of an expanding Universe
became universally accepted. Gradually it evolved into the theory of the hot Big
Bang, describing the creation of the Universe as an explosion from the cosmological
singularity. The Universe was supposed to behave like a huge ball of fire expanding
in all directions and cooling down. The echo of this primeval explosion was captured
in 1965 and called the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMB). But where
was the Universe expanding from? The theory of the hot Big Bang assumed that the
total number of elementary particles, which constitute all matter in the Universe,
did not change much since the moment of its creation. But how could it happen that
in the beginning there was no Universe and then suddenly all particles necessary
for creation of billions of galaxies emerged from nowhere? And not only that, but
this was done in a rather orderly way: Density of matter in far removed parts of
v
vi Foreword
the world is practically the same, as if the newborn Universe was polished with an
incredible accuracy before the Big Bang explosion.
In the 1980s, the theory of the hot Big Bang was replaced by inflationary
theory. In the beginning, it looked like a science fiction story. According to this
theory, the newborn Universe was in an energetic vacuum-like state. Most of the
energy was contained in a special kind of matter called scalar field. Less than
a milligram of such matter is sufficient to create all matter in our Universe after
an explosive exponentially rapid expansion of space called inflation. This rapid
expansion stretched all previously existing inhomogeneities and made the Universe
huge and nearly exactly uniform.
This could seem obviously wrong: How could it be possible to create everything
from practically (or literally) nothing? Whats about energy conservation? Is it
possible for the Universe to expand so fast that its distant parts move away from
each other with the speed faster than the speed of light? As if to add insult to
injury, cosmologists proposed that galaxies were created due to amplification of
tiny quantum fluctuations produced during inflation. Many people objected, saying
that nothing classical could be created from quantum. And yet, during the last
30 years this theory has passed numerous theoretical consistency checks, and many
of its predictions have been already confirmed by cosmological observations. It
is gradually becoming the leading cosmological paradigm for the description of
creation of the Universe and formation of its large-scale structure.
One of the most unexpected consequences of inflationary theory is that quantum
fluctuations responsible for galaxy formations sometimes may be powerful enough
to create new parts of inflationary Universe, rendering the Universe as a huge eter-
nally growing self-reproducing fractal. Inflationary Universe becomes a multiverse,
consisting of many exponentially large parts with different properties.
And each of these parts has many secrets which we are just beginning to uncover.
Previously we thought that the Universe is guided by the famous principle what you
see is what you get. But cosmological observations have shown that we see only
about 5 % of all matter in our part of the Universe. Approximately 27 % of all matter
is in an invisible state called dark matter, and 68 % is in yet another invisible state,
called dark energy.
Recent progress in this area is so significant that following it is quite difficult.
Most of the new information is spread among thousands of scientific papers. It
is summarized in some technical books written for cosmologists actively working
in the field. Two of such books, Cosmological Inflation and Large-Scale Structure
and The Primordial Density Perturbation: Cosmology, Inflation and the Origin of
Structure by David Lyth and Andrew Liddle, achieved their goal beautifully, helping
to educate a new generation of physicists in all matters related to cosmology. The
success of these books was not surprising: Both of their authors are prominent
scientists. David Lyth is one of the leading authorities in inflationary cosmology
and the theory of inflationary perturbations responsible for creation of galaxies. His
works created a new language which is often used as a bridge between theorists and
observers.
Foreword vii
The goal of the book by David Lyth The History of the Universe is to describe
the new vision of the world in a simple, accessible, and reliable way. This is
not an easy task. One cannot achieve it without making many simplifications
which can easily produce a nice but blurry and imprecise image. That is why it
is especially important to have a real expert to do this work. As the author says in
the Preface, the account of physics is meant to be accessible to anybody. However,
deep knowledge and understanding of the material as well as the experience with
presenting this material in his earlier books has allowed David Lyth to make just the
right amount of simplification to keep the book The History of the Universe readable
and understandable by everyone. And yet the book is very accurate, rigorous, and
informative; it provides a unique perspective, which, I believe, will make it very
useful even for those who know cosmology well.
Andrei Linde
Preface
This book is about the history of the Universe, not only what happened but why
it happened. In other words, it is about cosmology which is actually a branch of
physics.
Ever since I first met them, I have been fascinated by physics and cosmology.
With physics that was when I was 11 years old and with cosmology when I was
43 in 1983. Before encountering cosmology I worked on the theory of elementary
particles, whose collisions are observed at machines like the one at CERN in
Geneva. That turned out to be useful, because the collisions now observed in the
laboratory happened also in the early Universe.
When I first encountered cosmology, it had recently been suggested that all of
the structure in the Universe originated as a random quantum process, taking place
at some very early time. The idea was both simple and remarkable, and I quickly
published some research on it. That was easier in those days than it is now because
the subject had hardly any previous history and there were only a few relevant
papers.
More research followed, and along the way a couple of textbooks with my
colleague Andrew Liddle. Those are academic books aimed mostly at other
researchers. This book, by contrast, is intended to be accessible to everyone. As
we need physics for cosmology, a few chapters of the book are devoted to it, and
more physics is introduced as we go along. If you know physics already, you will
be able to skip some or all of those bits.
I have many people to thank for questions that prompted the writing of this
book. For invaluable comments on drafts of the book at various stages, I thank Phil
Furneaux, Brian Martin, Vince Higgs, my wife Margaret, and my brother Peter.
Finally, I am indebted to people in Lancaster for help with the figures, in particular
Lingfei Wang whose continuous attention has been invaluable.
Lancaster, UK David H. Lyth
ix
Contents
1 The Universe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
2 Before We Begin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3 The Fundamental Theories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4 Atoms and Electromagnetism .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
5 The Present Universe .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
6 Collisions and Decays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
7 A First Look at the History .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
8 Energy Density of the Universe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
9 In the Beginning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
10 Friedmann Tells the Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
11 Ripples in the Universe.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
12 Galaxy Formation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
13 The Higgs Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
14 Inflation .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
15 Generating the Perturbation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
16 Prehistory of the Big Bang .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
17 What About Us? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
xi
xii Contents
A More Detail with Some Mathematics .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
B Tables . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Glossary . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Index . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Chapter 1
The Universe
From our home on the Earth, we look out into the distances and strive to imagine the sort
of world into which we were born. : : :. The search will continue. : : :. It is not satisfied and
it will not be suppressed.
(Edwin P. Hubble in Realm of the Nebulae, 1936)
I suppose that we humans have always tried to understand whats around us.
Until recently though, we didnt achieved much. As far as can be told from the
written record, our ideas about the nature of physical reality were mostly way off
course, and ideas about the Universe beyond the Earth were completely wrong.
The first step to understanding the Universe was not taken until the early sixteenth
century, when Copernicus realized that the passage of the planets across the sky
implies that both they and the Earth are going around the Sun in roughly circular
orbits. Now, five centuries later, we know much more.
We know the geography of the Universe. We are on the edge of a galaxy, which
contains billions of stars more or less like the Sun. The stars you see in the sky are
a small sample of those stars. There are billions of other galaxies, more or less like
ours, separated from each other by vast distances.
We know the history of the Universe, starting from a simple state of affairs when
it was about a hundredth of a second old. Ill be calling that the known history.
The history is a long one, because the Universe is now about 13:8 billion years
old. Throughout the known history, the Universe has been expanding. At very early
times, there were no galaxies, but just a nearly homogeneous gas.1 It wasnt quite
homogeneous though, and that is what led to the formation of galaxies. Each galaxy
began as a slightly over-dense region, which attracted more and more matter towards
it through the force of gravity until it finally collapsed under its own weight.
1
In physics homogeneous means the same everywhere, which is one of its ordinary English
meanings.
Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 1

D.H. Lyth, The History of the Universe, Astronomers Universe,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-22744-3_1
2 1 The Universe
When a galaxy first forms its just a cloud of gas. Then over-dense regions within
it collapse, to form stars. There are many different types of star, a veritable zoo. The
study of individual objects like stars, or even galaxies, is called astrophysics and is
not regarded as part of cosmology which studies the Universe as a whole. Just to
satisfy your curiosity though, Ill describe the zoo briefly in Chap. 5.
We know, with one proviso, what the Universe is made of. There is electromag-
netic radiation, which can be regarded as consisting of particles called photons, and
there are also some other particles called neutrinos. Theres also ordinary matter,
that you and I are made of. Finally, theres what is called Cold Dark Matter or CDM.
The CDM is called Cold because its particles have hardly any random motion,
corresponding to a very low temperature. Its called Dark because it doesnt emit
any radiation. But it doesnt absorb any either, so it should really be called Cold
Transparent Matter. Even more remarkably, there is no discernable effect when a
CDM particle encounters a particle of ordinary matter, even though such encounters
must be taking place all the time. As a result of all this, we know of the CDM only
through its gravitational effect, and we dont know anything about the nature of the
particles that its made of. (Thats the proviso.)
We know what fraction of the Universes energy is carried by each of those
components, and now comes a surprise. The fractions dont add up to 1, because
the vacuum itself has energy. The energy density of the vacuum is called the
Cosmological Constant. As with the CDM, we know that the Cosmological
Constant is there because of its gravitational effect. Its called a constant because
it doesnt change with time. This is in contrast to the contribution of particles to the
energy density. That contribution decreases with time as the particles move apart
with the expansion.
Our biggest single source of information about cosmology came from whats
called the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), shown in Fig. 1.1. This is
electromagnetic radiation, emitted when the Universe was only about a third of
a million years old long before galaxy formation. The CMB is almost isotropic,2
varying only be about one part in ten thousand. That is because the cosmic gas was
homogeneous to the same accuracy when the CMB was emitted.
More information comes from the observation of galaxies. The stars we see in
the sky are in our galaxy, but hundreds of thousands of other galaxies have been
observed through telescopes. As shown in Fig. 1.2, their distribution averaged over
a large volume is nearly uniform.
The distribution of galaxies can be analyzed statistically, and so can the
anisotropy of the CMB.3 In both cases, one finds that the statistical properties are
the same in every region, and that they dont pick out any particular direction. We
say that the Universe is statistically homogeneous and statistically isotropic.
We dont know for sure what happened before the beginning of the known
history, but it was presumably preceded by some era when the Universe was still an
2
Isotropic means the same in all directions.
3
Anisotropy is noun corresponding to the adjective anisotropic, which means not isotropic.
1 The Universe 3
Fig. 1.1 The image is a map of the whole sky, and is analogous to the map of the whole Earth that
one sometimes sees. The boundary of the map corresponds to a single direction in the sky, and its
centre corresponds to the opposite direction. The map shows the brightness of the CMB, the dark
blue regions being the brightest and the red regions being least bright. The variation in brightness
is only about one part in 10;000 (Source: NASA [www.nasa.gov])
expanding gas of particles. The entire era when there was an expanding gas is called
the Big Bang. The Big Bang was probably preceded by what is called inflation.
Conditions at the end of a long era of inflation are more or less independent of
what they were at the beginning. As a result, a suitably-chosen inflation scenario
can provide a complete explanation of what we observe. This is both a blessing
and a curse. Its a curse because it means that observation cant distinguish between
different scenarios for what happened before inflation. Its a blessing, because it
removes the need to think about such scenarios; for practical purposes, the history
of the Universe begins with inflation!
Alternatives to inflation have been proposed, in which the very early Universe
is contracting, the contraction only later giving way to expansion. There are also
cyclic proposals, in which that process is repeated. The alternatives are more
complicated than inflation, and less popular.
In all of this, Ive been writing Universe, but of course we dont really know
about the whole Universe. We only know about a spherical region around us,
called the Observable Universe. The boundary of this region is called the present
horizon.4 The distance to the present horizon is the biggest distance that any particle
can have travelled, starting at the beginning of the Big Bang and ending at the
present epoch. It really does mark the limit of the observable Universe, because
all of our knowledge about the Universe is obtained by observing particles that were
emitted during the Big Bang.
4
One is also interested in the size of the region that could have been observed at an earlier epoch.
Its boundary is called simply the horizon.
4 1 The Universe
Fig. 1.2 A survey of the large galaxies, that are within two opposite wedges of the Universe around
us. The survey finds more than 220;000 galaxies. The Earth is at the centre of the image, and the
circle is about 2109 light years away. Each dot is a large galaxy. The redshift of a galaxy is defined
as its distance divided by what is called the Hubble distance, and the latter is approximately the
distance to the present horizon (Image courtesy of M. Blanton and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey)
Nobody knows whats beyond the present horizon, and nobody ever will. There
are ideas of course. One idea is that there are many regions, more or less like the one
that we occupy, which constitute islands in a rather chaotic sea. That is one version
of what is called the multiverse, which is suggested by some models of inflation.5
A different idea is that the whole Universe has a finite volume, and is everywhere
like the observable Universe. In that case, a straight line moving outwards from our
5
In another version, the multiverse is the set of all possible Universes that might have existed (but
actually do not) as a result of the quantum theory of inflation. In yet another, it is the set of all
Universes that are being continuously created according to the many worlds interpretation of
quantum physics.
1 The Universe 5
location would end up as a straight line moving towards from the opposite direction!
In this book Ill stick to the observable Universe. To avoid cluttering the text though,
I will usually just write Universe instead of observable Universe.
Chapter 2
Before We Begin
Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.

(Albert Einstein in a letter to Jost Winteler, c. 1901)
Before we get to physics and cosmology, there are some things I need to deal
with. Ill begin with the most important thing.
Why Should You Believe Me?
Why should you believe what you read? Why should anyone believe what a scientist
is saying?
Heres an analogy that might be helpful. Suppose youve completed a crossword,
and somebody suggests that your solution may be wrong even though it fits the
clues. From that question, you know that youre dealing with someone whose never
done a crossword. You will have to explain that although its logically possible for
your solution to be wrong, the fact that the words mesh with each other makes it
very unlikely.
A piece of established science is a bit like the solution to a crossword. It
starts with observations which are a bit like the clues. Then it makes sense of
the observations through a theory which is a bit like the meshing of the answers.
Its logically possible that the result is incorrect, but so unlikely that its not worth
thinking about.
Of course there is always a scientific frontier, where research is still in progress
and were not sure what is correct. Thats as if you had only completed the top half
of your crossword when someone suggested that the answers may be wrong. You
would have to admit the that some of the answers near the bottom might be wrong
because they wouldnt be as firmly embedded with each other as those higher up,
which you can be sure about.

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-22744-3_2
8 2 Before We Begin
Something that the crossword analogy doesnt capture, is the issue of accuracy.
A measurement can always be made more accurate, and a theory sometimes
requires modification in the face of more accurate observations. As well see,
Newtons theory of gravity was modified by Einstein, and Maxwells theory of
electromagnetism was modified when quantum physics came along. Currently
accepted theories will no doubt require modification in the future. But the key word
here is modification; the old theory will still be valid within some accuracy. Most
importantly, the central facts are not going to change. Atoms definitely exist and the
Earth definitely goes round the Sun.
New Words
There are new words in this book, as well as words whose meaning in physics
is different from the usual one. There are also some abbreviations. New words
and abbreviations are essential to produce something readable. Without them, the
sentences would become too long to read. It would be like doing without the words
cow, grazing and field, to write some adult female cattle are biting off and
chewing long green leaves, in an enclosed area of the countryside that contains no
bare ground.
The meaning of each word or abbreviation is explained the first time it appears,
and is summarised in the Glossary. If its going to be used a lot it appears in boldface
like this.
As the book contains so many new ideas, you will need to take it quite slowly,
with regular breaks to give yourself time to think. You cant digest all of the
information in an afternoon, any more than you could digest several meals. You
may also want to take a break to access a website, for further enlightenment on
some particular topic.
About Mathematics
The body of the book is mostly descriptive, with hardly any mathematics.
Appendix A amplifies what is said in the body of the book, and some of it uses
mathematics.
Although the body of the book is free of mathematics, it does contain numbers.
I need to explain three things about the numbers. The first is a piece of notation
that allows us to write down very small and very big numbers, without using a lot of
zeros. You may know already that 23 , say, means 2 2 2 and that 23 , means 1=23 .
Using this notation we write say 1:5 1015 , instead of 1;500;000;000;000;000, and
1:5 1015 instead 0:000;000;000;000;001;5. This is much better than exhibiting
the zeros and leaving the reader to count them.
About Mathematics 9
Fig. 2.1 One things is one thing

proportional to another
another thing
The second thing has to do with accuracy. I have stated, for instance, that the
Universe is 13:8 billion years old but thats not exact. The age of the Universe
is almost certainly between 13:0 and 14:6 billion years, but 13:8 billion is just a
best guess. Given that situation, there would be no point in giving more than two
figures. It would be nonsense to write that the age is 13:872 million years. On the
other hand, Ill be writing later that the rest energy of the electron is 0:511 MeV.
(Dont worry for now what rest energy and MeV are.) In fact, we know that its
0:51099891 MeV with pretty high accuracy, but to write that would have cluttered
the page to no purpose. Ill give the numerical values of things without comment
in the rest of the book. In some cases the number I give is a bit uncertain. In other
cases, I could have given it much more accurately.
The third thing is the meaning of the word magnitude. If a quantity can be
either positive or negative, its magnitude is its numerical value. So 8 and 8 both
have magnitude 8.
Throughout the book, I will use the phrase proportional to. When we say
that one thing is proportional to another, we mean that the two things depend on
each other in such a way that doubling one means doubling the other, tripling one
means tripling the other, halving one means halving the other and so on. As shown
in Fig. 2.1, this means that a graph of one thing against the other is a straight line
passing through the point where both quantities are zero. One thing might be the
distance travelled by something moving in a straight line with constant speed with
another thing being the time taken to travel that distance.
Chapter 3
The Fundamental Theories
Nature and natures laws lay hid in night:

God said, Let Newton be! and all was light.
(Epitaph by Alexander Pope on the death of Isaac Newton in 1727.)
In this chapter I give a birds-eye view of twenty-first century physics. Then I give
a (very) brief history of physics.
The Twin Pillars of Physics
At the present time, almost all of physics rests on two fundamental theories. These
are General Relativity which describes gravity, and the Standard Model which
describes almost everything else.
General Relativity was worked out by Einstein and published in 1916. The
Standard Model was the work of several people, and was completed in the 1970s
after a series of dramatic breakthroughs. As the name suggests, the Standard Model
was initially intended as a working hypothesis and its continuing success has been
something of a surprise.
The Standard Model deals with what physicists call particles. As is the case
with several other words the physics meaning of particle is a bit different from the
usual one. It does mean something very small, as in ordinary English, but there is
more. The particles of physics come in different varieties, called species, and all
examples of a given species are identical.
The first species to be discovered, by J. J. Thomson in 1897, was the electron.
An electric current within say a wire is simply a flow of electrons. Many other
species have been discovered since, all described by the Standard Model. They are of
two kinds; elementary particles that are not made of other particles, and composite
particles that are made out of elementary particles.

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12 3 The Fundamental Theories
Most particle species are usually denoted by a letter (Roman or Greek) rather
than by a name. The elementary particles of the Standard Model are listed in
Appendix B. They can be divided into three categories, called quarks, leptons and
gauge bosons, plus an odd man out called the Higgs boson.1 The composite particles
of the Standard Model are called hadrons and are made out of quarks.
The Standard Model tells us what happens when particles collide. It also tells
us about the process called decay, whereby a particle is replaced by two or more
other particles. These two processes are collectively called the interactions of the
particles.
Besides particles, the Standard Model deals with what physicists call fields. A
field is not localised in space, but rather is spread out over a whole region or even the
entire Universethe very opposite of a particle. A familiar example is the magnetic
field that is detected by our compasses.
Although the Standard Model accounts for almost all observations its not
perfect. It doesnt account for the mass of the three elementary particles, known
collectively as neutrinos. Also, it doesnt include any particle species that could
be the Cold Dark Matter. For these and other reasons, various extensions of
the Standard Model have been proposed. The extensions use the same general
framework as the Standard Model, called quantum field theory. The only difference
is that there are additional particle species, which have specified interactions with
each other and with the Standard Model particles.
General Relativity and quantum field theory work well in practice, and they
can be combined to some extent. But, as will be seen in Chap. 16, one can
envisage extreme situations in which they fail to work. In those situations one
needs a better theory, which gives General Relativity and quantum field theory as
approximations. The favoured candidate for such a theory is called string theory.
The word string refers to the fundamental objects of the theory, which are one-
dimensional. According to string theory, each particle is a very small loop of string.
The possibility of observing the strings themselves is mentioned in Chap. 16.
The History of Physics
Now Ill describe some of the most important steps, by which our present knowledge
was achieved. At every stage, observation was crucial in pointing the way forward
but to keep things simple I will focus on the theory. Along the way, I will introduce
three numbers called fundamental constants,2 denoted by the symbols G, c and h.
Physics, as we now know it, might be said to have started with the publication
in 1687 of Isaac Newtons Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. In it,
Newton dealt with what is called mechanics; the description of the motion of objects
1
Boson is pronounced boze-on after the Indian physicist Satyendra Nath Bose.
2
In physics, a constant is a quantity which doesnt change with time, i.e. is constant.
The History of Physics 13
under the influence of the forces acting on them. As shown in Fig. 3.1, Newtons
theory was the starting point for both General Relativity and the Standard Model.
It was the starting point for General Relativity because it gave the first theory of
gravity. Indeed, it was Newton who coined the name gravity. Newtons theory of
gravity involves G, which specifies the strength of gravity. That theory was accepted
as correct, right up until the publication in 1916 of Einsteins General Relativity.
Einsteins theory involves, in addition to G, the speed of light which is denoted by
c. Newtons theory of gravity is valid only as an approximation, for objects moving
with speed much less than c. General Relativity works perfectly in all situations,
within the accuracy of present observations.
So much for gravity. The road from Newtons mechanics to the Standard Model
was far less direct. At every stage, gravity was excluded from the discussion. The
first step was the formulation of what is called is called classical electrodynamics,
that was brought into its final form by James Clerk Maxwell in the 1860s. Classical
electrodynamics deals with magnetic and electric fields, and with electromagnetic
radiation of which light is an example. Electromagnetic radiation consists of
rapidly varying electric and magnetic fields, and it always travels through the
vacuum with speed c. Classical electromagnetism also deals with charged objects,
that generate electric and magnetic fields and are affected by them.
The next development came with the publication of Einsteins theory of Special
Relativity in 1905. Special Relativity is a description of space and time that is quite
different from the commonsense description, that we have on the basis of everyday
experience with speeds much less than c. A parallel development was begun by
Planck in 1900, who invoked the third fundamental constant h. It is called Plancks
constant. Effects that depend on h are called quantum effects, and when one is
considering them one is said to be doing quantum physics. In any situation where
quantum effects are small enough to be ignored, we recover what is called classical
physics. Roughly speaking, quantum physics is needed only for the description of
very small objects like particles and atoms.
Although Planck introduced h in 1900, the subsequent development of quantum
physics was quite slow. A significant step was taken in the 1920s with the
formulation of quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics is based on Newtonian
mechanics, and gives a good description of atoms and molecules. It doesnt involve
any fundamental constant except h. Then, in the 1930s and 1940s, Quantum
Electrodynamics was developed, which involves h and c because it uses both
Classical Electrodyamics and Special Relativity.
According to Quantum Electrodynamics, a beam of light can be regarded as a
beam of particles, namely photons. In its original form, Quantum Electrodynamics
worked with just the photon and the electron. Many particle species have been
found since. Most of them have been found building what are called accelerators.
An accelerator causes particles to collide violently with each other, or with atomic
nuclei. This may be done by accelerating a single beam of particles, which collide
against a stationary target. It can also be done by accelerating two beams, that collide
with each other. Discoveries at accelerators led to the formulation of the Standard
Model in the 1970s, and the construction of accelerators has continued, to produce
14 3 The Fundamental Theories
beams of ever higher energy that can create ever more massive particles, and probe
the nature of the interactions at ever shorter distances.
The LHC at the CERN laboratory in Geneva is at present the accelerator with
the highest energy. It was designed to search for evidence of some extension of
the Standard Model. None has been found at the time of writing, the results being
completely consistent with the Standard Model. The cost of the accelerators has
increased with their energy, and there is at present no firm plan to build a machine
with more energy than the LHC.
To specify the fundamental constants we need to choose units for length,

mass and time. The standard choice for science are the meter, kilogram
and second, defining what are called MKS units. Using these units, c D
3:00 105 km seconds1 , G D 6:67 1011 metres3 kg1 seconds2 and h D
6:631034 metres2 kg seconds1 . The units are inserted to show what happens
if they are changed; multiplying a unit by some factor changes the value by the
indicated power of that factor. In the case of c, displaying the units has a direct
physical interpretation, which is that light travels at c D 3:00 108 kilometres
per second.
Newtonian Mechanics
1687
Quantum
Newtonian Gravity Classical Electrodynamics
Mechanics
1687 G 1860s c
(atoms) 1920s h
General relativity Special relativity

1916 G,c 1905 c
Quantum Electrodynamics
1930s and 40s c, h
Standard Model
1970s c, h
Fig. 3.1 The history of physics

The History of Physics 15
Standard Model Parameters In addition to the fundamental constants, a

theory usually involves more numbers. They are called parameters of the
theory, and their values are determined by requiring that the theory agrees with
observation. The Standard Model involves 18 parameters; 12 of these can be
taken to be the masses of the elementary particles (excluding the neutrinos),
and the other 6 describe the interactions of the particles. To fully describe the
neutrinos, we need 7 more parameters; 3 of these can be taken to be the masses
of the neutrinos, and the other 4 are needed to account for a phenomenon called
neutrino oscillation. The masses are given in Table A.4 of Appendix B.
Chapter 4
Atoms and Electromagnetism
Matter, though divisible in an extreme degree, is nevertheless not infinitely divisible. : : : I

have chosen the word atom to signify these ultimate particles.
(John Dalton in notes for a Royal Institution Lecture, 1810)
This chapter deals with atoms and electromagnetism. You may well be familiar
with those topics, in which case please skip the chapter.
Atoms
The Earth and everything on it consists of atoms. An atom is made of just three
particle species, namely the proton, the neutron and the electron. The proton and
neutron are made out of quarks. As shown in Fig. 4.1, they are in a tightly packed
ball at the centre of the atom which is surrounded by the electrons. The ball is called
the nucleus of the atom.
The properties of an atom are almost entirely determined by the number of
protons in its nucleus. The simplest atom is hydrogen with one proton. Hydrogen is
denoted by the letter H. Next is helium with two protons, denoted by He. Then we
have lithium (Li) with three protons, beryllium (Be) with four protons and so on.
These are collectively called elements. The elements are listed in Fig. 4.2, arranged
in what is called the Periodic Table.
Except for the simplest version of hydrogen, every nucleus contains some
neutrons. The number of neutrons per proton cannot be too big or too small, or the
nucleus would fall apart, but it is not completely fixed. When we want to distinguish
between atoms with different numbers of neutrons, we attach a number to its letter
to specify the total number of particles in the nucleus. Hydrogen comes in three
versions, 1 H, 2 H and 3 H. Helium comes in two versions, 3 He and 4 He, and so on.
The versions of an atom are called isotopes.

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-22744-3_4
18 4 Atoms and Electromagnetism
Fig. 4.1 Picture of a typical e

atom, namely 6 Li which
consists of a nucleus
e
containing three protons and
three neutrons, and a cloud of
electrons containing as many
electrons as there are protons.
The picture is not to scale p n
because the size of a nucleus n p
is only about 1015 metres,
whereas the size of an atom p n
(i.e. of the electron cloud) is
about 1010 metres
Like many particles, protons and electrons have what is called electric charge,
or for short just charge. This is a number that can be either positive or negative.
Particles with charge of opposite sign are pulled together by what is called the
electric force; we say that the force is attractive. Particles with charges of the same
sign are pushed apart and we say that the force is repulsive.
I will specify charges as multiples of the proton charge. With that convention the
proton has charge 1 and the electron has charge 1. The neutron has zero electric
charge. An object with zero electric charge is said to be neutral, otherwise it is said
to be charged.
The electrons in an atom are moving, but they dont fly away because the electric
force pulls them toward the positively charged nucleus. You might wonder why the
protons in the nucleus are not pushed apart by the electric force between them.
The answer is that there is another force, called the strong force. The strong force
doesnt distinguish between protons and neutrons, and pulls them together so as to
overcome the electric repulsion between the protons.
An atom can exist on its own, or be part of a molecule which is a bundle of
atoms. For instance, a water molecule contains two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen
atom. Molecules usually contain only a few atoms, but molecules containing carbon
atoms (called organic molecules) can contain an enormous number. The biggest that
can be made in the laboratory contain around 108 atoms. Beyond that we come to
molecules that form the basis of life such as DNA which typically contains around
1011 atoms.
Atoms
Fig. 4.2 In each box, the letters give the symbol which is often used instead of the atoms name, and the number gives the number of protons in the nucleus
19
Neutrality
A normal atom is neutral, being composed of equal numbers of protons and

electrons. There are also atoms in which the number of protons is different from
the number of electrons. The most usual situation is to have, within some region,
a number of positively charged atoms that have lost one electron, with the lost
electrons moving freely between them. In that case the region as a whole is neutral.
It can happen that a region has more protons than electrons or vice versa, but that
is usually a temporary situation that is ended when electrons move to or from the
region to make it electrically neutral again. Static electricity is an example. Combing
your hair can move electrons from your hair to the comb, making both of them
charged. Your hairs, if dry, will be pushed apart by the electric force. As time goes
on though, your hair will pick up electrons from its surroundings and the comb will
lose electrons, so that they both recover their neutrality.
Astronomical objects like planets and stars are neutral to very high accuracy. As
a result, the only significant force between them is the force of gravity.
Electric and Magnetic Fields
The magnetic field exists at some level throughout the Universe. To specify the
magnetic field, we have to give two pieces of information; we have to specify the
direction of the field, and its strength. On the Earth, the magnetic field is detected by
compasses. The compass needle points along the direction of the magnetic field, and
it is pulled more or less strongly according to the strength of the field. The Earths
magnetic field is illustrated in Fig. 4.3. It is generated by an electric current flowing
within the Earths iron core.
Fig. 4.3 This shows the Earths magnetic field. The lines indicate the direction of the field. We
can regard the space around the Earth as being filled by such lines (Source: NASA [www.nasa.
gov])
Electromagnetic Radiation 21
Fig. 4.4 This shows the electric field generated by a stationary positive charge. The lines indicate
the direction of the field. The strength of the field is proportional to 1=r2 , where r is the distance
from the charge. The field generated by a negative charge is the same, except that it points inwards
The electric field also has both a strength and a direction. It exists near any
charged object, as shown in Fig. 4.4. The electric field pulls a positively charged
object in its direction, and it pulls a negatively charged object in the opposite
direction.
The electric and magnetic fields are collectively called the electromagnetic field.
The electromagnetic field exerts a force on every charged object. The electric force
between two stationary charged objects occurs because each object generates an
electric field, which is felt by the other object.
Electromagnetic Radiation
Now we come to electromagnetic radiation. In the simplest kind of electromagnetic

radiation, the strengths of the electric and magnetic fields are oscillating as shown
in Fig. 4.5. This is called an electromagnetic wave and it travels with the speed
of light. As we move along the direction of the wave, the strengths of the fields
vary as in Fig. 4.6. The most general kind of electromagnetic radiation consists
of electromagnetic waves travelling in different directions, and oscillating with
different frequencies.
Each colour of the rainbow corresponds to electromagnetic waves of a definite
frequency. Violet has the highest frequency and red the lowest. Going down in
frequency from red, we have electromagnetic radiation that is not visible to the
strength
period
time
Fig. 4.5 This shows how the strengths of the electric and magnetic in an electromagnetic wave
vary with time at a fixed position. The period is the time taken for one oscillations, measured
usually in seconds. The frequency is 1 divided by the period, or in other words the number of
oscillations per second
strength
wavelength
distance
Fig. 4.6 This shows how the strengths of the electric and magnetic in an electromagnetic wave
vary as one goes along the wave at a fixed time. The wavelength is the distance between points of
maximum strength. An electromagnetic wave is like an ocean wave, with the strength of the field
corresponding to the height of the water. When we stand in the water as the waves pass by, the
waver level changes as in Fig. 4.5. If we look across the water, we see the pattern in Fig. 4.6
eye; first infra-red radiation, then microwaves and finally radio waves. Going up
from violet we have ultra-violet radiation, X-rays and finally gamma rays. This is
illustrated in Fig. 4.7.
According to Quantum Electrodynamics, electromagnetic radiation consists of
photons. If the radiation has a certain frequency, the energy of each photon is equal
to the frequency times Plancks constant h. Figure 4.7 shows the relation between
energy and frequency.
Electromagnetic Radiation
Fig. 4.7 Courtesy of the Advanced Light Source, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. In the bottom line, the energy unit is the eV. I am using the MeV,
equal to 106 eV
23
Magnets
A magnet is a piece of metal that generates a magnetic field. To understand a
magnet we have to go to the level of individual atoms. Around each atom there
is a magnetic field, which is usually a miniature version of the field generated by
the Earth. In a normal material, the atoms are randomly orientated so that their
magnetic fields cancel. In a magnetic though, the atoms are at least partially
aligned so that they generate a net magnetic field. Magnets are usually made
of iron. The magnetic field produced by a magnet has the same form as the
Earths magnetic field. If a freely moving magnet is placed in a magnetic field,
its north pole points in the direction of the field. A compass needle is such a
magnet, and it points in the direction of the Earths magnetic field.
Chapter 5
The Present Universe
There are countless Suns and countless Earths : : :

(Giordan Bruno in De LInfinito Universo E Mondi (1584).
In this chapter I describe the objects, that exist in the Universe at the present
time. Then I explain how we know about these objects, by observing the particles
that they emit.1 Finally I describe the cosmic backgrounds, consisting of particles
that were emitted in the early Universe before there were any individual objects.
The Objects
Lets begin with the Sun. Its a dense ball of hot gas, containing atomic nuclei
and freely moving electrons. The nuclei are undergoing nuclear fusion, which
generates very energetic photons and neutrinos. The neutrinos escape promptly, but
the photons bounce off the electrons. It takes about a million years for a photon to
escape from the centre of the Sun.
The Universe is populated with stars more or less like the Sun, that are powered
by nuclear fusion. Some stars are known to have planets circling round them, and
there are presumably planets that resemble the Earth in their temperature and the
mix of land, water and atmosphere. According to recent research, it seems likely
that life developed on such planets.
When a star has used up all of its nuclear fuel, it collapses. If the star is not too
heavy, the collapse is halted by a quantum effect called electron degeneracy. We
then have a white dwarf consisting of highly compressed ordinary matter.
The mass of a white dwarf cannot be more than 1:44 times the mass of the
Sun, because electron degeneracy cannot resist the pull of gravity for a heavier
1
This includes electromagnetic radiation, which consists of photons.

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-22744-3_5
26 5 The Present Universe
star. A heavier star will become so highly compressed that each proton combines
with an electron, to form a neutron and a neutrino. The neutrinos fly away but the
neutrons remain, and for all except the very heaviest stars, the collapse is finally
halted by what is called neutron degeneracy. We then have a neutron star consisting
of neutrons. The radius of a neutron star is only around 10 km, and it is so dense that
a teaspoon of a neutron star is about a thousand times as heavy as the Great Pyramid
of Giza. Some neutron stars are emitting a strong beam of electromagnetic radiation
which rotates like a lighthouse beam so that we see it as a series of pulses. Those
neutron stars are called pulsars.
A neutron star cannot be more than about three times heavier than the Sun,
because even neutron degeneracy cannot resist the pull of gravity for a heavier star.
A heavier star will keep on collapsing, to form a black hole. The gravity of a black
hole is so strong that nothing emerges from it, not even light.
The violent collapse leading to the formation of a neutron star or black hole is
called a supernova. A supernova first emits an intense burst of neutrinos, lasting for
less than a minute. Then there is an intense burst of photons lasting a few days. If a
supernova occurs in our galaxy, and is not obscured by dust, it can outshine all other
stars and be visible during the day. Those naked-eye supernovas are very rare and
only a few have been described by past generations, the last one in 1604.
Supernovas are thought to account for what are called gamma ray bursts, which
are observed at the rate of around one a day. The burst of gamma rays is apparently
released as two oppositely directed jets, just after a star collapses to form a black
hole. The amount of energy released is huge, around one percent of the stars rest
mass.
Supernovas are the most violent events in the Universe. They are vital to our
existence, and even to the existence of the Earth itself. That is because they
are responsible for the creation of practically all nuclei and therefore, ultimately,
the creation of practically all atoms. Without supernovas, the present Universe
would contain only the hydrogen and helium, plus tiny amounts of the lithium and
beryllium. (We will see how those originate in Chap. 7.)
Many stars are in pairs that orbit around each other. These are called binaries. If
a binary contains a white dwarf and an ordinary star, matter can flow from the star
to the white dwarf. If the mass of the white dwarf becomes bigger than 1:44M , it
collapses to become a neutron star. The collapse is a supernova, just like the collapse
of an isolated star.
The stars are gathered into galaxies. We are near the edge of a large galaxy, called
the Milky Way galaxy. Looking at the sky with the naked eye, one sees stars in the
Milky Way galaxy, and the Milky Way itself which consists of stars in our galaxy
that cant be seen individually with the naked eye.2 Most galaxies are gathered into
2
The stars in the milky way were first seen by Galileo in 1610 using his telescope. Only three
galaxies are visible to the naked eye; these are the Andromeda Nebula seen in the Northern
Hemisphere, and the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds visible in the Souther Hemisphere.
The Objects 27
galaxy clusters. This is illustrated schematically in Fig. 5.1, and a real image is
shown in Fig. 1.2.
At least the larger galaxies have a black hole at their centre. The black hole
accounts for only a tiny fraction of the galaxys mass, but it is still far heavier than
the black holes formed by the collapse of a star. Sometimes, a large amount of matter
is falling violently into the black hole generating intense electromagnetic radiation.
We then have what is called an active galactic nucleus.
Each star is hot ball of gas, consisting of the nuclei and electrons that make up
ordinary matter. There is also a cooler gas, that pervades the whole Universe and
contains both ordinary matter and Cold Dark Matter (CDM). As shown in Fig. 5.1,
this gas becomes more dense as we go inside a galaxy cluster, and denser still as we
go inside an individual galaxy.
The gas between the clusters is almost homogeneous and I will call it the
cosmic gas. The distribution of the galaxy clusters is also almost homogeneous;
in other words, the number of galaxy clusters within a region of given volume that
contains many clusters, is almost independent of the location of the region. We can
summarise this situation by saying that the present Universe is almost homogeneous.
Fig. 5.1 Stars are made of ordinary matter and are gathered into galaxies, the galaxies in turn being
gathered into galaxy clusters. A galaxy contains 105 to 1012 stars, and a galaxy cluster can contain
anything up to several thousand galaxies. There is also a gas that pervades the Universe, which
consists of Cold Dark Matter (CDM) as well as ordinary matter. In the Figure the dots represent
stars, the small disks represent galaxies and the big disk represents a single galaxy cluster. The gas
becomes denser when we go inside a galaxy cluster, and denser still when we go inside a galaxy.
The gas between the clusters is practically homogeneous and I am calling it the cosmic gas
Observing the Universe
Electromagnetic radiation is nowadays observed over the whole range of frequen-

cies, from radio waves to very high-energy gamma rays. The telescopes are of
many different kinds, and are mounted in balloons and satellites as well as on the
Earth. The radiation comes from all of the objects mentioned, including supernovas
in distant galaxies.
Neutrinos are also observed. This is difficult, because a typical neutrino passes
right through the Earth without interacting. A neutrino detector consists of a large
tank of liquid, around which are devices for detecting the photons that are emitted
on the rare occasions when a neutrino interacts with an atom in the tank. To shield
it from cosmic rays, a neutrino detector has to be placed underground, or under a
deep body of water.
Neutrinos created in accelerators are detected in this way. Neutrinos from the
Sun are also detected, and in 1987 neutrinos from a nearby supernova were detected.
Starting in 2013, neutrinos from sources outside the solar system are being observed
routinely, at the IceCube neutrino detector under the Antarctic ice. This marks the
beginning of neutrino astronomy.
Some objects in the Universe emit, in addition to photons and neutrinos, particles
and nuclei that arrive at the Earth constituting what are called primary cosmic
rays.3 Its not known for sure what those objects are, but likely candidates include
supernovas, quasars and active galactic nuclei. The same objects are presumably
responsible for the very high energy gamma rays, that like the cosmic rays come to
us from all directions rather than from identifiable sources. Primary cosmic rays
consist of electrons and nuclei (mostly hydrogen and helium) along with a tiny
fraction of positrons and anti-protons. When they hit the atmosphere the primary
cosmic rays produce more particles, called secondary cosmic rays. Cosmic rays are
detected by a variety of methods.
Thats all for the moment, but within the next few years there will be another
window on the Universe; we will detect gravitational radiation. Gravitational
radiation is similar to electromagnetic radiation, except that the quantity which
varies is the acceleration of gravity instead of the electromagnetic field. According
to General Relativity it is generated in principle by any moving object, that is not
travelling in a straight line with constant speed. So, if you move your arm as you
come towards me, you emit a pulse of gravitational radiation which pulls me from
side to side when it arrives. The effect though, is far too weak to be detectable. For
gravitational radiation to be detectable, it must come from places in the Universe
where huge amounts of matter are undergoing huge acceleration. The generation
and detection of gravitational radiation is summarised in Fig. 5.2 and one of the
boxes.
3
The particles and nuclei interact with the cosmic gas on their journey towards us. The products of
such interactions, arriving at the Earth, are included under the heading primary cosmic rays.
The Cosmic Backgrounds 29
Fig. 5.2 Gravitational radiation (Source: NASA [www.nasa.gov])
The Cosmic Backgrounds
The photons and neutrinos that Ive mentioned so far, were emitted quite recently,
by stars and the gas between them. There are also photons and neutrinos that were
created in the early Universe, before there were any stars or galaxies. The photons
constitute the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) that was mentioned in
Chap. 1. The neutrinos constitute what Ill call the Cosmic Neutrino Background.
The CMB and the Cosmic Neutrino Background are practically homogeneous, and
Ill take the term cosmic gas to include them.
The CMB was first observed in 1964.4 The slight variation in its brightness
with direction (CMB anisotropy) was first observed in 1992. The Cosmic Neutrino
Background has not been observed directly, but its existence can be deduced by
comparing the CMB anisotropy with the one that would exist if it were absent.
4
To be precise that is when it was first recognised as such. An earlier observation in 1957 was not
recognised at the time.
Table 5.1 Cosmic sizes and masses The masses are in units of the Suns mass, which is 1:99
1030 kg. The size given for the Sun is its radius and the other sizes can be taken as radii as well.
(Galaxies and galaxy clusters are not really spherical but that doesnt matter because the sizes
given are only approximate.) The range of star sizes excludes neutron stars, whose radius is only
about 10 km. A lightyear is the distance travelled by light in a year which is 9:46 1012 km
Size Mass
Sun 7 105 km 1
Star 104 km to 108 km 101 to 102
Stellar black hole Roughly 10 km Roughly 10
Galactic black hole Roughly 106 km Roughly 106
Galaxy 103 to 106 lightyears 104 to 1013
Galaxy cluster 106 to 107 lightyears 1012 to 1016
These CMB and the Cosmic Neutrino Background are generated during the
known history of the Universe and certainly exist. If the Big Bang is preceded by an
era of inflation, that will generate another background, consisting of gravitational
radiation. If this is sufficiently intense, it will in the future be detected through its
effect on the CMB anisotropy. I will have much more to say about these backgrounds
in later chapters (Table 5.1).
Generating gravitational radiation

The most powerful sources of gravitational radiation are pairs of very nearby
objects that are rotating around each other. Each object must be either a black
hole or a neutron star, that being the only way in which they can be close enough
to be a powerful source. The emission of the gravitational waves causes the
distance between the pair to decrease so that their orbit spirals inwards. This
has been observed in cases where one of the objects is a pulsar, and the rate
of spiralling is in accordance with General Relativity. Eventually the pair will
come together, leading to a final intense burst of gravitational radiation called
a chirp.
Other sources of potential observable gravitational radiation include (i) a
white dwarf, neutron star or stellar black hole which is orbiting around a
galactic black hole, (ii) a pair of galactic black holes orbiting around each
other, (iii) a rotating neutron star and (iv) a supernova. Gravitational radiation
from a pair of galactic black holes will be detected through its distortion of
the otherwise regular pulses of the electromagnetic radiation observed from a
pulsar. Gravitational radiation from a variety of sources will be detected by
devices called laser interferometers, either in space or on the Earth.
Chapter 6
Collisions and Decays
The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and
we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe. [translated from the German]
(Albert Einstein, telegram sent to prominent Americans, 24 May 1946)
The collision of two particles, and the decay of a single particle, are important
in many different situations. So too are collisions and decays that involve atoms
and nuclei. The aim of this chapter is to describe some collisions and decays that
are important in the early Universe. Collisions and decays are described by the
Standard Model, which works within the framework of Einsteins Special Relativity
and ignores gravity.
Energy of an Object
Before coming to collisions and decays, I need to discuss energy. Particles have
energy and so do fields. One of energys most important properties is that it cannot
be created or destroyed. Particles can exchange energy with each other and with
fields, but the total amount of energy remains the same. A quantity with that property
is said in physics to be conserved, so in physics parlance energy is conserved.
Please be clear though, that the physics usage of the phrase energy conservation
has nothing to do with the ordinary English use of that phrase. In ordinary English,
energy conservation means ensuring that our houses, cars and so on dont use
too much energy. In physics terminology, energy is conserved no matter how much
energy is used by a house or a car, because that energy will come from somewhere
else.
According to Special Relativity, the energy of a stationary object is equal to its
mass, times c2 . Written as an equation, this is E D mc2 , where E is the energy and

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-22744-3_6
32 6 Collisions and Decays
Fig. 6.1 The energy of a E/ mc2

moving object. If the object 7
moves with speed v, its
6
energy is itsprest energy
divided by 1 v 2 =c2 . It 5
increases without limit as the 4
speed approaches c
3
2
1
0 v/ c
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
m is the mass.1 Surely the worlds most famous equation! The energy of a stationary
object is called its rest energy because in physics a stationary object is said to be
at rest. The object might be a particle, or something of ordinary size like a rock, or
something of astronomical size like a planet or a galaxy.
If the object is moving, its energy is bigger as shown in Fig. 6.1. The difference
between the energy of a moving object and its rest energy is called the kinetic
energy of the object. As the speed of the object approaches c, its energy increases
with limit. When we increase the speed of an object, we give it energy which has to
come from somewhere. One can never accelerate an object to speed c, because only
a finite amount of energy is available. Photons are able to travel with speed c, only
because that is always their speed. A particle with that property is said to have zero
mass.
Contrary to what one might think, the mass of an atom or nucleus is not equal
to the sum of the masses of its constituents. Equivalently, its rest energy is not the
sum of the constituents rest energies. It is smaller, by an amount called the binding
energy. The binding energy is the amount of energy that is needed to break up the
atom or nucleus into its constituents.2
Collision Processes
Let us now see what may happen when two particles collide.3 One possibility is for
nothing to happen; each particle continues as if the other were not there. Another
1
If we were dealing with numbers we would write E D m c2 , but multiplication signs are not
shown when the numbers are represented by symbols.
2
I am here regarding the constituents of an atom is its electrons and its nucleus, not as its electrons
and its individual protons and neutrons.
3
By collision I actually mean just a close encounter, because particles can affect each other
without actual contact. Actual contact would make no sense anyway for elementary particles
because they can be regarded as occupying points in space.
Collision Processes 33
possibility is for the particles to simply bounce off each other. The most interesting
possibility, though, is for one or more particles to be created or destroyed. In that
case we have what is called a collision process. The Standard Model tells us the
probability for each of these outcomes.
At the beginning of the known history, three collision processes are occurring.
They are listed in Table 6.1. For each process, the reverse is also possible.4 In the
first process, two photons collide, to create an electron and a positron. The positron
has the same mass as the electron, but the opposite charge.5 Because of energy
conservation, this electron-positron annihilation process can occur only if the energy
of the photons is at least twice the rest energy of an electron.
In the second process, an electron-positron pair is created when a neutrino
collides with an anti-neutrino. As seen in Table A.4, there are actually three
neutrino species, all with very small masses. Neutrino physics involves various
complications, that are mostly irrelevant to cosmology. To keep things simple, I
will usually pretend that there is only one species of neutrino, with zero mass.
The probability for any collision process involving a neutrino is very low, and
a typical neutrino can pass right through the Earth without undergoing any such
interaction. The second process occurs only in the very early Universe, when the
number of neutrinos per unit volume is extraordinarily high. This is true also for the
third process, in which an electron and proton annihilate to create a neutrino and a
neutron. When a neutrino is created, its kinetic energy is always far bigger than its
rest energy because the latter is so small. As a result, neutrinos always travel with
speeds very close to c.6
Collision and decay processes may involve atoms and nuclei as well as particles.
Four that are important for cosmology are shown in Table 6.2. In each case, the
Table 6.1 Particle collision processes. The plus signs dont mean that numbers are being added,
they simple stand for and. The forward arrow means that the particles on the left can disappear,
to produce the particles on the right. The backward arrow means that the reverse process can occur
photon C photon electron C positron
neutrino C anti-neutrino electron C positron
proton C electron neutron C neutrino
Table 6.2 Nuclear and 2

H C photon proton C neutron
atomic collision processes 3
He C photon proton C 2 H
4 2
He C proton H C 3 He
hydrogen atom C photon proton C electron
4
That is true for any process; if it can occur, so can the reverse process.
5
The positron is the anti-particle of the electron. As seen in Table A.4, many other particle species
come with an antiparticle which always the same mass and (if charged) the opposite electric charge.
6
As we shall see, the Cosmic Neutrino Background is an exception to that statement.
Table 6.3 These three Baryon number Charge Lepton number

quantities are conserved in
every collision and decay Proton 1 1 0
process. The proton and Neutron 1 0 0
neutron carry baryon number Electron 0 1 1
and are called baryons. The Positron 0 1 1
electron, positron, neutrino Neutrino 0 0 1
and anti-neutrino carry lepton
number and are called leptons Anti-neutrino 0 0 1
produced particles have more mass than the colliding particles and the colliding
particles must have enough kinetic energy to create the extra mass. The reverse
of each process can also occur, which releases kinetic energy. The reverses of the
second and third processes in Table 6.2 are examples of what is called nuclear
fusion, in which two nuclei combine to form a heavier nucleus. They are what make
the Sun and stars hot, and are used in H-bombs.
There are also processes, which I wont deal with, that produce kinetic energy
by splitting a nucleus into lighter nuclei. These are called nuclear fission, and are
used in nuclear reactors and ordinary atomic bombs. Einsteins telegram quoted at
the head of this chapter was referring to the existence of atomic bombs.
Other Conserved Quantities
Energy is not the only quantity that is conserved. Another conserved quantity, that
we already met, is electric charge and according to the Standard Model there are two
more called baryon number and lepton number. The baryon number and lepton
number of each species is listed in Table 6.3, along with its electric charge. Its easy
to check that all three quantities are conserved by each of the processes in Tables 6.1
and 6.2.
Baryon number and lepton number are just book-keeping devices. Their conser-
vation tell us that some processes dont happen, and thats all. For instance, the
collision of a proton with an electron cant produce a pair of photons, because
that would fail to conserve both baryon number and lepton number even though
it conserves electric charge. In contrast, electric charge has significance going
beyond mere conservation. The electric charge of an object determines the strength
of the electromagnetic field that it generates, and the effect on its motion of that
field.
Decay Processes 35
fraction
1.0
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0 time
0 10 20 30 40
Fig. 6.2 Neutron decay This graph shows the fraction of neutrons, starting with a large sample,
that will be present after a given number of minutes. After 15 minutes, half of the neutrons have
decayed. That number will in turn be halved in another 15 minutes, and so on. For a single neutron,
the graph gives the probability that an existing neutron will still be present after a given time
interval. All of this applies to any decay process, only the half-life being different
Decay Processes
Now I come to decays. To be specific Ill describe neutron decay. When a neutron
decays it is replaced by a proton, an electron and an anti-neutrino. These three
particles move outwards from the place where the neutron decayed. For a single
particle one cant say when the decay will occur, but for a large sample of the
particles one can say what fraction of them will remain after a given length of time.
This is shown in Fig. 6.2 for the neutron. After 15 minutes, only half of the neutrons
will remain and one says that 15 minutes is the half-life of the neutron. We can
also view Fig. 6.2 in a different way. We can take it to refer to a single neutron. Then,
it gives the probability that the neutron existing at some time, will still exist later.
Almost all other particle species decay, with a half-life much shorter than that
of the neutron. Some nuclei also decay, but the half-life of a naturally occurring
nucleus is usually much longer than that of the neutron and it can be bigger than the
age of the Universe.
When discussing a decay process, it is convenient to suppose that the observer
is moving with the decaying particle.7 For that observer, the energy of the decaying
particle is its rest energy. Energy conservation therefore requires that the mass of
the decaying particle is bigger than the total mass of the decay products. That,
together with the conservation of the other three conserved quantities, explains why
the electron and proton are stable. The electron is stable because there is no charged
particle with smaller mass. The proton is stable because no particle with smaller
mass has baryon number. If baryon number conservation is not exact, the proton
might decay with a very long lifetime. Observation at accelerators requires that the
7
The half-life is defined as the one found by such an observer. According to Special Relativity, a
differently moving observer will find a longer half-life.
lifetime is bigger than about 1029 years. Thats much bigger than the age of the
Universe, which is as well or we wouldnt exist!
Speed and velocity. In Physics, speed and velocity mean different things.
Speed means the same thing as in ordinary English, so its specified by a
number. To specify the velocity of an object though, you have to give its speed
and the direction of its motion. If the direction changes, the velocity changes
even if the speed remains the same. Speed in physics is usually denoted by v,
with I suppose the word velocity in mind.
The energy unit

The MKS unit of of energy is called the Joule. The rest energy of a one-
kilogram weight is therefore c2 Joules, ie. 9 1016 Joules. Several other
energy units are in use. Your electricity bill will use the kilowatt hour which
is 3:6 million Joules. Your guide to nutrition will use the food calorie which is
4,200 Joules. Particle physicists use a unit called the eV (electron-volt) which
is equal to 1:602 1019 Joules. They also use multiples of the eV, and Im
using the MeV (pronounced em-ee-vee) which is a million eV.
Chapter 7
A First Look at the History
: : : nuclear species must have originated : : : as a consequence of a continuous building-up

process arrested by a rapid expansion and cooling of the primordial matter.
(R. A. Alpher and G. Gamov, in the journal Physical Review Letters, 1948)
We have some certain knowledge of the observable Universe, only after it is

about a hundredth of a second old. I am calling that the known history and in this
chapter I give a brief account of it.
Expansion of the Universe
The observable Universe is expanding. To understand what that means, we can

begin with the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). It is almost homogeneous
at present, and remains so as we go back in time. The expansion means that any two
pieces of the CMB are moving apart.
The expansion is isotropic (the same in all directions). To see what that means,
please look at Fig. 7.1. Each dot represents the CMB that is within some small
region, and the dots are arranged to make a square grid. The isotropic expansion
scales up the grid with the passage of time, but it remains square because the rate of
expansion is isotropic.
As a result of the expansion, the distance between any two pieces of the CMB is
proportional to a scale factor, which is the same for any two pieces. The scale factor
is denoted by a, and its present value is chosen to be 1. At an earlier epoch, when
the scale factor was say 1=2, two pieces of the CMB were only half as far apart as
they are now.
Each object is moving through the isotropically expanding CMB, with some
velocity called its peculiar velocity. In particular, each galaxy has some peculiar
velocity. If every galaxy had zero peculiar velocity, the distance between any two
of them would be proportional to the scale factor. Taking account of the peculiar

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-22744-3_7
38 7 A First Look at the History
Fig. 7.1 Each dot represents a small piece of the cosmic gas. The right hand grid corresponds
to the present epoch. The left hand grid corresponds to an earlier epoch, when the spacing of the
points was only half as big as it is now. The scale factor a is equal to 1 at the present epoch, and to
1=2 at the earlier epoch
velocity, its still the case that the distance between a pair of galaxies is almost
exactly proportional to the scale factor if they are far apart. That is because galaxies
far apart are moving away from each other so quickly that their peculiar velocities
make hardly any difference.
To describe the expansion, I focussed on the CMB. I could as well have focussed
on the gas between the galaxy clusters, which I am calling the cosmic gas. It too, is
almost homogeneous and is expanding almost isotropically just like the CMB. As
we will see, the galaxies didnt always exist. Before they formed, the whole Universe
was just a nearly homogeneous gas, that was expanding almost isotropically.
Abolishing Gravity
We are going to see how the collision and decay processes, described in Chap. 6,
play out during the known history of the early Universe.1 At first sight there seems
to be a problem with doing that, because these processes are described by the
Standard Model which ignores gravity. It turns out that gravity has a big effect on
the expansion of the Universe, which seems to make the problem fatal.
Fortunately, it is always possible to abolish gravity within a small region for a
short time. To understand how, we can think about the Earths gravity. We dont
actually have to abolish the Earths gravity to use the Standard Model on the Earths
surface because the gravity is far too weak to matter. But suppose that were not
the case; how then, could we use the Standard Model? The answer is simple. We
would need to go to a space station orbiting the Earth. In that environment, gravity is
abolished as we know from watching movies of the astronauts. Gravity is abolished
because it has the same effect on every object within the space station, and on the
1
By early Universe, I mean the Universe before there were any galaxies or stars.
Abolishing Gravity 39
Fig. 7.2 The circle

represents the Earth, and the
box represents a ridiculously
large space station. It is so big
that the direction of the
Earths gravity varies
significantly as we go across
it. In such a space station, the
Earths gravity would pull
together objects on opposite
sides of the station, and
gravity would no longer be
abolished within it
space station itself.2 Theres no need for the space station to be in orbit. It could be
moving away from the Earth with its motors switched off, or falling toward it, and
gravity would still be abolished. With the latter possibility in mind one says that the
space station, or any object subject only to the force of gravity, is free-falling.
For gravity to be abolished, its important that the space station is much smaller
than the Earth. If it were not, then as illustrated in Fig. 7.2 the force of gravity
would change direction as one moved across the space station. As a result, objects
at opposite sides of the station would be pulled toward each other by the Earths
gravity. Its also important that we dont consider a long time interval, because no
matter how small is the space station the direction of gravity will vary slightly within
it, giving a significant effect if we wait long enough.
Although I focussed on a space station, I would as well have focussed on any
free-falling region that is sufficiently small, and is considered for a sufficiently short
time. This, then, is how we must apply the Standard Model to the early Universe. We
must focus on a piece of the cosmic gas that is sufficiently small, for a sufficiently
short time.3 It turns out that sufficiently small means much less than the size of
the observable Universe and that sufficiently short means short enough that there
is hardly any expansion. To deal with the whole observable Universe and the whole
known history, we have to do it in a sort of piecemeal way, by splitting up space and
2
Objects within the space station are of course still pulled toward each other by the force of gravity,
but that is a tiny effect because we deal with objects of ordinary size. There are no planets within
the space station, and no moon!
3
In a homogeneous Universe we dont have to worry about the requirement of free fall, because
gravity is the only thing that affects the expansion rate of the Universe which means that each piece
of the cosmic gas is indeed free-falling.
time into small chunks. In the following account of the known history I will take
that for granted.
What Happens During the Known History
The known history is summarised in Table 7.1, and Ill go through it stage by stage.
At the first stage, corresponding to the first line of the Table, the Universe contains
several particle species. There are4 protons, neutrons, photons, electrons, positrons,
neutrinos and antineutrinos and the CDM. All of the collision processes listed in
Table 6.1 are frequently occurring. The inverse of each process also occurs at the
same rate, corresponding to what is called thermal equilibrium. This determines the
number of protons per neutron; they are about equal at early times but by the end of
the first stage there are about seven protons for every neutron. Thermal equilibrium
also determines the number densities and the energy densities of the other species.
They turn out to be about equal to each other, and much bigger than those of the
protons and neutrons.
Table 7.1 Known history of the Universe. The first column shows the age of the Universe.
The second column shows the scale factor a, which is the size of the region that will become the
observable Universe, divided by its present size. In the third column, E is the average energy of a
photon. In the first line, < means less than and > means more than. We dont know when this first
stage begins
Age a E What happens
<1 second <2:0 1010 >4 MeV Frequent interactions,
1 second 2:0 1010 4 MeV Neutrino interactions
cease, CNB released
30 seconds 1:1 109 0:5 MeV Electron-positron
annihilation
300 seconds 3:2 109 0:17 MeV Big Bang Nucleosynthesis
380;000 years 1=1100 7:0 107 MeV Epoch of last scattering
CMB released
1:9 108 years 0:05 1:3 108 MeV First galaxies form
5:8 109 years 0:5 1:3 109 MeV Galaxy clusters form
9:3 109 years 0:7 9:2 1010 MeV Sun forms
13:8 109 years 1 6:5 1010 MeV Present time
4
Im dealing here with the situation towards the end of the first stage, which is all we know about
for sure. We will see in Chap. 16 what might have happened earlier.
What Happens During the Known History 41
Densities
In physics, the density of any quantity is the amount of it in a small region,
divided by the volume of the region. Its practically independent of the size
of the region if it is small enough, unless we go down to the level where the
region contains only a few particles. Density on its own means the density of
mass (mass density). In cosmology we are concerned with the density of energy
(energy density) and the density of the number of particles of a given species
(number density) and the densities of conserved quantities.
As the Universe expands, the average distance between the particles increases
and their average energy decreases. As a result of these things, collision processes
that involve neutrinos become less likely, and when the Universe is about a second
old they practically cease marking the end of the first stage. The neutrinos then
existing, exist still as the Cosmic Neutrino Background. About half a minute later,
the energy of a typical photon becomes less than the rest energy of an electron. As
a result, the process in the first line of Table 6.1 ceases. The reverse of the process
removes all of the positrons and nearly all of the electrons, leaving just one electron
per proton. We call this electron-positron annihilation.
After about five minutes, the neutrons combine with protons to form nuclei. It
did not happen earlier, because the nuclear collision process in Table 6.2 broke up
any nucleus that managed to form. Almost all of the neutrons end up inside 4 He
nuclei, which make up about 25 % of the mass of ordinary matter. Almost all of
the remaining 75 % comes from single protons (ordinary hydrogen nuclei). Some
other light nuclei are created at the same time, and the other nuclei are created much
later in supernovas, but these nuclei account for only a tiny fraction of the mass.
As a result, about 25 % of the mass of ordinary matter is still 4 He and 75 % is still
ordinary hydrogen.
After the formation of light nuclei, nothing happens for about half a million years.
Then, almost every electron combines with a nucleus to form a helium or hydrogen
atom. This didnt happen earlier, because there were many photons with energy
bigger than the atomic binding energies. Those photons would have broken up any
atom that managed to form.
After atom formation, the photons no longer bounce off electrons as they did
earlier. Instead, each photon moves in a straight line. The epoch of atom formation
is therefore called the epoch of last scattering. (Scattering is the physics term
for the bouncing of particles off each other.) The photons existing just after last
scattering are now seen as the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB).
While all of these things are happening, the Universe is nearly homogenous.
Its not completely homogeneous though, and some regions are slightly more
dense then their surroundings. Additional matter is attracted towards such regions
through the force of gravity, and after about 100 million years some of the regions
collapse under their own weight, to form the first galaxies. Within each galaxy,
over-dense regions in turn collapse to form stars leading to the Universe that we
now observe.
Formation of light nuclei

The process starts with the formation of 2 H nuclei, which is the reverse of the
process shown in the first line of Table 6.2. The formation becomes effective
only when the average photon energy becomes so small that there are hardly
any photons with the enough energy to undergo the direct process. More
nuclear reactions quickly occur after the formation of 2 H nuclei, and Fig. 7.3
shows how the calculated abundance of each nucleus (and of the neutron)
changes with time. To do this calculation, the rate at which each nuclear
reaction occurs has to be determined by laboratory experiments. (The rates can
in principle be calculated from the Standard Model, but the calculation is too
difficult to perform.)
Almost all of the neutrons end up inside 4 He nuclei, but a tiny fraction
of the neutrons end up inside other light nuclei. These are 2 H and 3 H, 3 He,
and various lithium and beryllium nuclei. One would like to compare the
calculated abundances with observation. What we observe though, are the
abundances within stars of various kinds. During the process of star formation,
further nuclear reactions take place which affect the abundances. To make
the comparison one has to allow for those reactions, which can be done with
sufficient accuracy only for 4 He, 2 H, and 7 Li. The reactions hardly affect the
abundance of 4 He, but they affect the other abundances quite a bit. Allowing
for the reactions, the calculated abundances agree with observation, except for
the 7 Li abundance which seems to be too high.
The lithium discrepancy might be due to an error in the abundance of lithium
in stars, that is deduced from observation. It might also be due to an error in the
calculation of the change in the lithium abundance, caused by nuclear reactions
within those stars. Otherwise, the lithium discrepancy means that there is
something wrong with the calculation of the original lithium abundance. There
could be an error in the laboratory determinations of the relevant nuclear
reaction rates. Instead though, there could be an error in what has been assumed
about the early Universe. One possibility is that an unstable particle is present,
which decays at about the same time as the lithium is formed. Another is that
the density of the protons and neutrons depends strongly on position. A third is
that one or more of the fundamental constants is actually varying with time so
that it is different when the lithium is formed. Time will tell which explanation
is correct sowatch this space!
What Happens During the Known History 43
Fig. 7.3 Formation of light nuclei The upper horizontal scale is the age of the Universe in
seconds. The lower horizontal scale is the temperature. The vertical scale gives the mass fraction
of each nucleus. When the age is less than a few seconds, the number of neutrons per proton
is determined by thermal equilibrium. After that, thermal equilibrium fails for the neutrons and
protons and the neutron starts to decay with its half-life of 15 minutes. When the age is about
300 seconds, almost all of the neutrons bind into 4 He nuclei, but there is a small fraction of other
nuclei (Source: Ned Wright [www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/BBNS.html])
Why atom formation is the epoch of last scattering

To understand why the photons dont bounce off the electrons after the
formation of atoms, its useful to think in terms of electromagnetic radiation.
After atom formation, each electron is inside an atom and the wavelength of
the CMB is much bigger than the size of an atom. Since the atom has zero
total charge, the electromagnetic radiation behaves as if it were encountering
an object with zero charge which means that nothing happens to it.
Chapter 8
Energy Density of the Universe
The introduction of such a [cosmological] constant implies a considerable renunciation of

the logical simplicity : : : I am unable to believe that such an ugly thing should be realized
in nature.
(Albert Einstein in a letter to Georges Lemaitre, 1947)
One of the most important properties of the Universe is its energy density. By
energy density, I mean the energy per unit volume. In other words, the energy within
a region, divided by the volume of that region. As the Universe is homogeneous,
it doesnt matter where the region is located. It must not be too big or too small
though. It must be small compared with the size of the Universe, so that gravity can
be ignored as described in Chap. 7. But it must be big enough to constitute a fair
sample of the Universe.
How big that is, depends on the epoch under consideration. After the formation
of galaxies the region must contain many galaxies, and after the formation of galaxy
clusters it must contain many galaxy clusters. In the early Universe though, before
galaxy formation gets underway, all we need is for the region to contain many
particles.
About the Cosmological Constant
Table 8.1 shows the contribution to the present energy density, coming from each
component of the Universe. The biggest contribution comes from the Cosmological
Constant. As already mentioned in Chap. 1, the Cosmological Constant is the energy
density of the vacuum.
How do we know that the vacuum energy exists? As we will see in Chap. 9, we
know it exists through its gravitational effect. This is the same as the situation for
the Cold Dark Matter (CDM). For that reason, the vacuum energy is sometimes
called dark energy. The idea that the vacuum can have energy density is, of course

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-22744-3_8
46 8 Energy Density of the Universe
Table 8.1 The energy density of the Universe At the present epoch, the total energy density is
4;900 MeV per cubic meter, and the fraction contributed by each component is shown in the Table.
Photons not in the CMB give a negligible contribution, as do neutrinos not in the Cosmic Neutrino
Background. I am ignoring the neutrino mass which will be dealt with in Chap. 9
Cosmological Ordinary Cosmic Neutrino
Constant CDM matter CMB Background
0:69 0:26 0:048 5:4 105 3:7 105
energydensity
position
Fig. 8.1 The Cosmological Constant The upper dashed line is the quantum contribution and
the lower dashed line is the classical contribution. The full line is the sum of the two, that is the
observed value of the Cosmological Constant. The diagram is not to scale, because the quantum
contribution is at least 1060 times as big as the observed value
outrageous. Einstein realised almost immediately that this is possible according

to General Relativity, but the idea was not popular and a Cosmological Constant
was generally regarded as unlikely.1 Only in the late 1900s, was the existence of
the cosmological constant finally established. Nature has evidently chosen to be
outrageous!
Apart from its existence, the cosmological constant is puzzling in another way;
a quantum effect, known as a vacuum fluctuation, would by itself make the
cosmological constant far bigger than it actually is. To get the observed value of the
cosmological constant, we must suppose that it also has a classical contribution.
As shown in Fig. 8.1, the two contributions must cancel to high accuracy.
There is no known reason why the cancellation should occur. On the other hand,
if it did not occur, the cosmological constant would be much bigger that it is. As
we will see in Chap. 12, that would have prevented the formation of galaxies, which
would mean that there would be no stars, and no humans. Partly with that fact in
mind, many physicists entertain the idea that the observable Universe may be just
1
Einstein himself didnt regard the Cosmological Constant as the energy density of the vacuum,
but instead as a fundamental constant possessed by General Relativity in addition to G and c. That
makes no difference, because the effect of Einsteins Cosmological Constant is exactly the same as
the effect of vacuum energy density.
How the Energy Density Depends on the Scale Factor 47
one of many Universes, in which the cosmological constant takes on practically

every value. Then we live in one of the Universes that corresponds to a tiny value
simply because we could not live anywhere else.
The same line of reasoning has been invoked to explain some other puzzling
features of the world we live in. It is called the anthropic principle and the physics
community is polarized between those who love it and those who hate it. Those
who hate it take the view that the smallness of the cosmological constant is an
accident, or else that it can be explained by some as-yet undiscovered theory. That
situation is never going to change, because the existence of a few or even a few
dozen coincidences will not convince everybody that the anthropic principle is their
explanation.
How the Energy Density Depends on the Scale Factor
Now well see how the energy density of each component of the cosmic gas changes
with time. To be precise, well see how it depends on the scale factor a.
To do that, we have to think about the motion of the particles that make up the
gaseous Universe.2 To define the energy density we work within a region that is
much smaller than the observable Universe. The edge of such a region is moving
outwards with speed much less than c. But the particles have random motion, and
for some species the typical speed is close to c (or, for photons, equal to c). Those
species are called radiation. The other species, with speeds much less than c, are
called matter. According to this terminology, the ordinary matter and the CDM are
both matter, while the neutrinos and the photons are both radiation.
The matter is easy to deal with. because the energy of each particle is practically
equal to its rest energy. As a result the energy of the matter within the expanding
piece of gas is constant. Its volume on the other hand is proportional to a3 . (To see
this, think about a cube of the expanding gas. The length of each side is proportional
to a, and the volume is equal to the length cubed which indeed means that it is
proportional to a3 .) The energy density of the matter is therefore proportional to
1=a3 . It is shown in Fig. 8.2.
What about the radiation? The energy of the radiation within an expanding region
decreases as the region expands, because energy has to be expended to push against
the pressure of the surrounding radiation. It turns out that the energy of the region
is proportional to 1=a. As a result, the energy density is proportional to 1=a4 .
Assuming that the number of particles in the expanding region doesnt change,3 their
average energy is proportional to 1=a. This was shown for the photon in Table 7.1.
2
I take the constituents of the gas to be particles to keep the language simple. Depending on the
epoch, the constituents may also include nuclei, atoms and molecules.
3
That turns out to be true for the neutrinos, and also for the photons except at the epoch of electron-
positron annihilation.
48 8 Energy Density of the Universe
energy density
3.0
2.5
2.0
1.5
1.0
0.5
a
0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0
Fig. 8.2 The full line is the energy density of the Universe, divided by its present value. The
horizontal dashed line is the contribution of the Cosmological Constant and the other dashed line
is the contribution of the matter, while the contribution of the radiation is too small to show
energy density
10 20
1014
108
100
10 4
a
106 10 5 10 4 0.001 0.01 0.1 1
Fig. 8.3 The full line is again the energy density of the Universe divided by its present total energy
density. The scales have been stretched so that 102 , 101 , 1, 10, 102 etc. are at equal distances on
the paper. (Stretched scales allow large ranges to be equally visible, and I will often use them.) The
horizontal dashed line is the contribution of the Cosmological Constant. The dashed line crossing
it is the contribution of the matter and the other dashed line is the contribution of the radiation.
The radiation dominates when a is less than 2:8 104
All three contributions to the energy density are shown in Fig. 8.3. We see that
the radiation gives the biggest contribution to the energy density at early times.
The Universe is then said to be radiation dominated. For most of the subsequent
history, matter gives the biggest contribution and we say that the Universe is matter
dominated. Finally, at almost the present epoch, the cosmological constant starts to
become significant.
Chapter 9
In the Beginning
But although, as a matter of history, statistical mechanics owes its origins to investigations
in thermodynamics, it seems eminently worthy of an independent development, both on
account of the elegance and simplicity of its principles, and because it yields new results
and places old truths in a new light in departments quite outside of thermodynamics.
(J. Willard Gibbs (18391903), quoted in the textbook Thermal Physics by C. Kittel and
H. Kroemer)
The laws of physics determine the entire history of the Big Bang, as a conse-
quence of the conditions that exists at its beginning. Its as if one had wound up an
old-fashioned clock and then released the mechanism to do its own thing.
Instead of going to the very beginning, one can take any later epoch as the
beginning. Conditions existing then still determine the subsequent history. Its like
winding up the clock only part of the way before releasing it. In this chapter, Im
going to take the beginning to be the first stage of the known history, corresponding
to the first line of Table 7.1.
Thermal Equilibrium
To deal with the first stage, I need the concept of thermal equilibrium, which in
turn involves the concept of temperature. When a region of space is in thermal
equilibrium, it has a well-defined temperature. Given enough time, and left to itself,
any region will come into thermal equilibrium and then things will stop changing,
or only change slowly.
Temperature is of course a familiar concept, and for once everyday experience is
a good guide to the physics. Suppose I get into my car one cold morning. The air
outside the car, the car itself and the air within it are all at the same temperature;
everything is in thermal equilibrium. Now I switch on the heating, which destroys

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50 9 In the Beginning
the thermal equilibrium by injecting hot air into the cold car. After a while, the air
in the car is in thermal equilibrium at a higher temperature than before, and lets
suppose that I now switch off the heating. The air cools down a bit, while remaining
in thermal equilibrium, and it heats up things in the car like the steering wheel.
After a while everything is in thermal equilibrium at the same temperature as the
air. Everything, that is, except myself. I have my own heat supply, and my body
core is in thermal equilibrium at a higher temperature. Heat is flowing from my
body into the car.
The description that Ive just given, which ignores the microscopic structure of
things, corresponds to what is called thermodynamics. If we ask what is happening
to the molecules of the air, the steering wheel and myself, that we arrive at statistical
mechanics. From statistical mechanics, we learn that a gas can only be brought into
a state of thermal equilibrium by collisions between its constituents. The gas may
remain in a state of thermal equilibrium if the collisions cease, but the collisions
must have happened in the first place to bring about that state. An example of this is
provided by sunlight, which can be regarded as a gas of photons. Those photons
were brought into a state of equilibrium by collisions within the Sun, and they
are still approximately in that state even though they are undergoing no collisions.
Another example is provided by the CMB photons. Before last scattering the CMB
photons were brought into a state of equilibrium by collisions with other particles,
and they are still in such a state now.
According to statistical mechanics, the temperature of a substance determines
the average kinetic energy of its constituents. If we keep reducing the temperature
the average kinetic energy will go down and it will eventually reach zero. The
temperature at which that happens is the same for every substance, and its called
absolute zero. At absolute zero, every constituent has zero kinetic energy.1 Nothing
is moving! If we adopt the usual Celsius temperate scale, denoted by the letter C,
absolute zero corresponds to 273 C. In physics though, its more convenient to
take absolute zero to be zero temperature. We then arrive at the Kelvin temperature
scale, denoted by the letter K. The freezing point of water corresponds to 0 C, or
273 K.
When a gas has two or more constituents, not all of the constituents need to be in
thermal equilibrium. Also, different constituents may have different temperatures.
As well see, that is important for cosmology.
Thermal Equilibrium During the First Stage
During the first stage of the history, all three of the processes in Table 6.1 are
frequently occurring. These processes involve all of the particle species that are
1
As kinetic energy is a positive quantity, its average can be zero only if the kinetic energy of every
constituent is zero.
Thermal Equilibrium During the First Stage 51
present, except the Cold Dark Matter (CDM) particles. As a result, all parti-
cle species except the CDM are in thermal equilibrium at the same tempera-
ture.
The particles of the CDM rarely if ever undergo collision processes with ordinary
matter, so it will certainly not be in thermal equilibrium at the same temperature.
The CDM particles might be bouncing off each other, which could put them
into thermal equilibrium at a different temperature.2 Such self-interacting CDM
is not thought to be likely though, which means that the CDM is probably not
in thermal equilibrium even with itself. Ill ignore the CDM for the rest of this
chapter.
The properties of a gas in thermal equilibrium are determined by the densities of
the quantities that are conserved by the collision processes. One of these is always
the energy, but with other conserved quantities in place its density is determined by
the temperature so we dont need to consider it. In our case there are three other
conserved quantities. As shown in Table 6.3, these are the electric charge, the lepton
number and baryon number.
The electric charge density must be zero to very high accuracy, because there is
no significant electric force in the Universe. In the simplest version of the history,
that I am adopting, the lepton number density is also assumed to be zero, or anyhow
so small that it doesnt matter. The baryon number density is the same thing as the
number density of protons, plus the number density of neutrons. Its certainly not
zero, and its value during the first stage has to be chosen so that the present baryon
number density agrees with observation.
With the densities of the conserved quantities specified, thermal equilibrium
determines the other properties of the cosmic gas during the first stage. They
depend, not on the temperature itself but on the temperature times a number called
the Boltzman constant. The Boltzmann constant is denoted by k, and is equal to
8:62 1011 MeV per degree.
If we denote the temperature by T, the average photon energy is 2:70kT.
As shown in Table 7.1, the average photon energy is bigger than 4 MeV during
the first stage, which means that the temperature during the first stage is bigger
than 1011 K. In contrast, the temperature in the Sun is only (!) about a million
degrees.
What about the energies of the other species that are present? In the terminology
of Chap. 7, all species except the proton and neutron turn out to be radiation. In the
same terminology, the proton and neutron are matter at least by the end of the first
stage.3
Thermal equilibrium determines the number of protons per neutron. At early
times there is about one proton per neutron, but by the end of the first stage there are
about seven protons per neutron. The number is still about the same when the first
2
To agree with observation, the temperature would have to be low, which is why its called Cold
Dark Matter.
3
Well see in Chap. 10 what may have happened at much earlier times.
52 9 In the Beginning
nuclei form because hardly any of the neutrons have decayed. This accounts for the
fact that 4 He makes up about 25 % of the total mass.4
As the Universe expands, the temperature falls. One can show that it is
proportional to 1=a.
How thermal equilibrium works

Lets take as an example, the number of photons per electron. When that
number corresponds to thermal equilibrium, the collision process in the first
line of Table 6.1 (which replaces two photons by an electron-positron pair)
takes place at the same rate per unit volume as its reverse. If the number were
bigger, the forward process would occur at a faster rate than the reverse process,
which would reduce the number. If it were smaller, the forward process would
occur at a slower rate which would increase it. Either way, we would end up
with the equilibrium number.
Its the same for any quantity; if there isnt thermal equilibrium, collisions
between the particles change the quantity, and it stops changing only when
thermal equilibrium is achieved.
One might think that the state of a gas in thermal equilibrium depends on the
details of the collision processes, as specified by the Standard Model. That is
not so, because the interactions have a property called time-reversal invariance,
and it can be shown that this property alone determines the distribution
functions at the thermal equilibrium. To understand time reversal invariance,
imagine that a film is made of a pair of colliding billiard balls. If the film is
shown run backwards, the viewer will have no way of knowing that. This is
the simplest example of time-reversal invariance. For a collision process, we
need to specify that each particle moves in a certain direction with a certain
energy. Time reversal then says the probability for this process is the same as
the probability for the reverse process.
Actually, time reversal invariance is not precisely correct; the fundamental
laws as given by the Standard Model do involve the arrow of time if we work to
a very high level of precision. That doesnt matter for our purpose. At the level
of precision that we need, time reversal invariance can be regarded as correct.
4
As the mass of the proton and neutron are almost the same, the proportion of 4 He by weight is
practically equal to 2n=.n C p/ where n is the number of neutrons in a region and p is the number
of protons. This is equal to 2=.1 C p=n/, which means that indeed p=n D 7 corresponds to 25 %
by weight of 4 He.
Chapter 10
Friedmann Tells the Time
: : : my criticism : : : was based on an error in my calculations. I consider that Mr.

Friedmanns equations are correct and shed new light.
(Albert Einstein in the journal Zeitschrift Fur Physik, 1923)
The previous chapter makes no reference to time. It simply asserts that the
Universe is in thermal equilibrium during the first stage of the history, and that
the temperature is then proportional to 1=a. To understand the rest of the history, as
described in Chap. 7, we need the timescale shown in Table 7.1. Where does that
come from? It comes from an equation derived by Alexander Friedmann in 1922,
using General Relativity.
The Friedman equation tells us the effect of gravity on the rate at which the
scale factor increases, or in other words on the expansion rate. According to the
Friedmann equation, that effect depends on the scale factor itself, and the energy
density. But we saw in Chap. 8 how the energy density depends on the scale factor.
As a result, the Friedmann equation tells us the effect of the energy density on the
expansion rate.
It turns out that the effect depends on where the energy density comes from. The
part of the energy density that comes form particles has the effect of slowing down
the expansion. In other words, the particles are being attracted towards each other
by the force of gravity which is what one would expect. Strangely though, the part
of the energy density that comes from the cosmological constant has the opposite
effect; it increases the expansion rate. In other words, the cosmological constant is
tending to push the particles apart.
According to observation, the energy density is related to the expansion rate in a
very special way, which is described by saying that the energy density has the critical
value. To define the critical value, we need to pretend that all of the energy density
comes from particles. If that were the case, the expansion rate would always be
decreasing and if the energy density were big enough it would eventually fall to zero
and then become negative. In other words, the expansion would turn around, and
become a contraction. On the other hand, if the energy density were small enough,

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54 10 Friedmann Tells the Time
expansion rate
10 8
10 11
10 14
10 17
a
10 11 10 9 10 7 10 5 0.001 0.1
Fig. 10.1 The expansion rate is the rate of increase of the scale factor a, plotted here with the
second as the time unit. Before the cosmological constant becomes significant, the expansion rate
is decreasing because gravity is attracting the particles to each other. Recently, the expansion rate
has started to increase because the cosmological constant corresponds to repulsive gravity which
pushes things apart
it would have little effect and the expansion would continue for ever. The critical
density is defined as the borderline between these possibilities; it is the one for
which the expansion would eventually just grind to a halt, without actually turning
round.
In summary then, the critical energy density is defined as the one that would
just halt the expansion if all of it came from the particles. But part of the energy
density actually comes from the cosmological contribution to the energy density,
which as we saw in Chap. 8 is at present becoming the dominant contribution. As
a result, the expansion rate is starting to increase and will continue to do so in the
future, even though the energy density is critical. The dependence of the expansion
rate on the scale factor is shown in Fig. 10.1. Using calculus, that dependence in
turn determines the relation between the scale factor and the age of the Universe,
displayed in the first two columns of Table 7.1.
The fact that the energy density is critical, relates to a story that begins around
300 BC. At about that time, Euclid of Alexandria produced a manuscript called
Elements. The manuscript proves all sorts of statements about straight lines
and circles, starting from a few assumptions which Euclid regarded as obviously
correct. It proves, for instance, that the angles of a triangle add up to 180 . These
statements, and their proofs, are called Euclidean geometry. Euclidean geometry
agrees with everyday experience, and was accepted without question until the
eighteenth century. Then, it was shown that by altering one of Euclids assumptions,
logically possible alternatives could be constructed, called non-Euclidean geometry.
In those alternatives, the sum of the angles of a triangle is different from 180. It was
found though, that even for a non-Euclidean geometry, Euclids geometry is still
valid within any sufficiently small region. The fact that Euclids geometry agrees
How the Clockwork Universe Works 55
with everyday experience was therefore no guarantee that it would remain valid on
larger scales.
There the matter rested, until Einstein came along with General Relativity.
According to General Relativity, the geometry of the homogeneous Universe is
Euclidean if the energy density is critical. That is the case according to observation,
but it might have been otherwise and then Euclid would have been wrong.
All of this refers to the homogeneous Universe. The geometry of the Universe
is different from Euclids when we take account of the inhomogeneity. It is only
slightly different in the early Universe, when the homogeneity is small. But it is
significantly different near a very dense object like a neutron star or even a white
dwarf, and near a black hole it becomes completely different.
How the Clockwork Universe Works
Now we are in a position to see how the laws of physics determine the known history
of the Universe. The process starts with the first stage, which was described in the
previous chapter. During the first stage, all three of the processes listed in Table 6.1
are frequent. To be precise, many of them can occur even in a time interval that is too
short for the Universe to expand appreciably. The first stage ends when that ceases
to be true, and the Standard Model tells us when that happens because it allows us
to calculate the rate at which each collision process occurs.
After the first stage, the history is the one described in Chap. 7. It continues to be
determined by the Standard Model, and the timescale provided by the Friedmann
equation. The neutrinos remain in a state of thermal equilibrium, with temperature
proportional to 1=a. They exist now as the Cosmic Neutrino Background whose
temperature is only 1:95 K. The photons also remain in a state of thermal
equilibrium, with a temperature that is proportional to 1=a except for a slight boost
around the time of electron-positron annihilation. They exist now as the Cosmic
Microwave Background (CMB) with temperature 2:73 K.
To calculate the history of the Universe, we need of course the fundamental
constants and some of the Standard Model parameters. We also need some numbers
which specify the state of the Universe during the first stage. We can choose the
numbers to refer to any epoch during the first stage. One of them is the temperature
at the chosen epoch and another is the baryon number density. These are enough
to determine the behaviour of the ordinary matter, but we need a third number to
specify the energy density of the CDM, and a fourth to specify the Cosmological
Constant.
Instead of actually considering the first stage, its more convenient to specify
these four quantities at the present epoch. That works just as well, because the
present values are determined by the values during the first stage, so that knowing
one set of values is the same as knowing the other. The present values are
determined by the requirement that the calculation I have been describing agrees
with observation, and you can find them in Table A.8 of Appendix B.
56 10 Friedmann Tells the Time
The Horizon Puzzle
The distance to the present horizon was defined in Chap. 1. Its the biggest distance
that anything could have travelled since the beginning of the Big Bang. In other
words, the distance that a photon would have travelled, had it been moving in a
straight line.
One can also define the distance to the horizon at an earlier epoch of the Big
Bang, as the biggest distance that anything could have travelled up to that epoch.
It turns out that as we go back in time during the Big Bang, the region within the
horizon represents an ever-decreasing fraction of the whole observable Universe.
That is a puzzle because it makes it difficult to understand why the entire
observable Universe was almost homogeneous at early times. The homogeneity
couldnt have been caused during the Big Bang, because there wasnt time for
anything to move across the entire observable Universe. The homogeneity instead
must have existed already, right at the beginning of the Big Bang. How did that
happen?
As we will see, enough inflation can explain the homogeneity, because there is
no limit to how far something can travel during inflation. As a bonus, inflation can
also create the slight inhomogeneity, which we know existed and was the cause of
galaxy formation.
Rate of change
If the expansion rate were constant we could define it as the change in a
during any time interval, divided by that interval. In reality the expansion rate
is changing with time, and we have to define it as the change in a during a short
time interval divided by that interval. This definition is the starting point for
calculus and it sounds sophisticated, but its actually something that we take
for granted in ordinary life. For instance, if I get into the car and drive down a
straight road, my speed is the rate of change of my distance from the starting
point. While the car is accelerating, the speed is increasing and it has to be
defined as the change during a short time interval divided by that interval. If
the speed at some instant is 50 kilometres per hour, that doesnt mean that I will
travel 50 kilometres in the next hour. But 50 kilometres per hour is 14 metres
per second, and I probably will travel about 14 metres in the next second. To
even better accuracy, I will travel 1:4 metres in the next tenth of a second. We
can define my speed using any time interval, so long as its short enough that
the speed hardly changes.
Chapter 11
Ripples in the Universe
The COBE Differential Microwave Radiometer (DMR) instrument has observed

. . . structure . . . primarily due to density variations, in the early universe. The results are
supportive of gravitational instability theories of structure formation and inflation/quantum
cosmology models.
(George Smoot, in AIP Conference Proceedings, 1992)
I have so far taken the early Universe to be completely homogeneous. Its time
now to deal with the slight inhomogeneity, which causes the CMB anisotropy
displayed in Fig. 1.1 and leads eventually to the formation of galaxies.
The inhomogeneity of a quantity in the early Universe is called a perturbation.
The most important perturbation is the energy density perturbation. At each
epoch, it is convenient to define the density contrast, as the energy density
perturbation divided by the average energy density. Figure 11.1 shows what the
energy density perturbation might look like, and Fig. 11.2 shows the corresponding
density contrast. As well as the perturbation in the total energy density, we are also
interested in the perturbation in the energy densities of single components of the
cosmic gas.
The term perturbation indicates that we are dealing with a small variation
with position. That corresponds to a density contrast which is much less than 1
in magnitude. As we will see, the density contrast of the CDM eventually becomes
bigger than 1 in some places, leading to galaxy formation. At that stage though,
one no longer deals with a perturbation. This chapter and the next deal only with
perturbations.
Instead of the actual energy density, it is often convenient to consider the
smoothed energy density. The smoothed energy density can be thought of as the one
that an outsider would see, if they had poor eyesight. To be precise, the smoothed
energy density at a given point in space is the average of the actual energy density,
over a sphere centred at that point. As illustrated in Fig. 11.3, this indeed makes the
density contrast smoother and it also makes it smaller.

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-22744-3_11
58 11 Ripples in the Universe
energy density
position
Fig. 11.1 Energy density The full line shows how the energy density might vary with position at
some epoch. The dashed line is the average energy density, and the difference between the two is
the energy density perturbation (edp)
density contrast
1.0
0.5
position
0.5
1.0
Fig. 11.2 Density contrast is defined as the edp divided by the average energy density. The curve
shows the density contrast corresponding to the edp shown in Fig. 11.1. It is much less than 1 in
magnitude and is independent of the energy unit
I will take the radius of the smoothing sphere to be proportional to the scale factor
a, and will call its present value the smoothing scale. The smoothing scales that can
be probed by observation range from the distance to the present horizon, which is
4:5 1010 lightyears, down to about 104 lightyears. I will call them cosmological
scales.
The Initial State
The known history of the Universe is determined by the state of affairs at the
beginning. We have seen how that works for the homogeneous Universe, and now
we are going to see how it works for the perturbations.
At the beginning of the known history, the smoothing radius is bigger than
the distance to the horizon on all cosmological scales. The perturbation in the
smoothed energy density existing then, is called the primordial energy density
perturbation. One usually assumes that at this stage, the energy densities of the
separate components are completely determined by the total energy density. This
is called the adiabatic condition, and it is consistent with current observation. One
can show that in consequence of the adiabatic condition, each component of the
cosmic gas starts out with about the same density contrast.
The Initial State 59
20
10
1 2 3 4 5 6
10
20
1.0
0.5
1 2 3 4 5 6
0.5
Fig. 11.3 Smoothing The first graph shows what the density contrast might look like, along some
line in space. The second graph shows the effect of smoothing; at each point, the density contrast
has been average over an interval which is centred on that point and whose length is 2 (The distance
unit in these plots is not specified)
We are not interested in the details of the density contrasts. In particular, we

are not interested in the locations of the individual peaks of the CDMs smoothed
density contrast, that will become galaxies. The locations of individual galaxies are
accidents, just as the distance of the Earth from the Sun is an accident. We interested
instead, in the statistical properties of the density contrasts.
To understand what that means, lets imagine that a coin is tossed many times,
and the results are written down. Then we could highlight all the heads entries,
and see how they are distributed. On average there would be as many heads as
tails, but the distribution would be uneven and we would sometimes find two heads
60 11 Ripples in the Universe
together. We might find even three or more but that becomes increasingly unlikely.
We could work out of the probability for each of these possibilities, and of any other
possibility regarding the distribution of heads. Then we would be studying the
statistical properties of the distribution of heads.
The statistical properties of the density contrasts refer to their form at a fixed
epoch. They are described in some detail in Appendix A. It turns out that the
statistical properties at the beginning of the known history are specified by two
parameters, whose values are shown in Table A.8 of Appendix B. Here in the text, I
will only be dealing with the most important statistical property, which is the average
of the square of the CDM matter density contrast.1 This is called the mean-square
because mean is another word for average.
The Acoustic Oscillation
Until the epoch of last scattering, the photons are bouncing off the electrons, and
electrical neutrality ensures that the number densities of the electrons and nuclei are
everywhere the same. As a result, the ordinary matter and photons can be regarded
as a single constituent of the the cosmic gas which is called the baryon-photon fluid.
After the initial epoch, the smoothing radius becomes smaller than the distance
to the horizon. That happens on successively smaller cosmological scales, starting
with the biggest one. Except on rather small cosmological scales, it happens before
the epoch of last scattering. We are then dealing with the baryon-photon fluid, whose
density contrast starts to change rapidly. This is called the acoustic oscillation of
the baryon-photon fluid because it resembles the rapid changes in the density of air
that correspond to sound. Its not like an ordinary sound wave though, which travels
through the air from the place where it was generated. Instead, its like what is called
a standing wave. As illustrated in Fig. 11.4, a standing wave oscillates without going
anywhere. A standing sound wave is generated inside a wind instrument, which then
travels out as an ordinary sound wave.
The CMB Anisotropy
Now we come to the CMB anisotropy, which was shown in Fig. 1.1. The CMB
originates at the epoch of last scattering, on a sphere around us which is called
the surface of last scattering The CMB therefore provides an approximate image of
the energy density of the baryon-photon fluid on the surface of last scattering. The
image is not exact though, because it is distorted by the motion of the baryon-photon
1
The density contrast itself is positive in some regions and negative in others, and its average is
zero.
The CMB Anisotropy 61
Fig. 11.4 Snapshots of the

acoustic oscillation They
refer to a single wave, the
complete oscillation
consisting of many waves
with different wavelengths.
The vertical axis is the
density contrast during the
acoustic oscillation of the
baryon-photon fluid, and the
horizontal axis is distance
along the direction of the
component. The changes take
place over half a period. After
another half period, the wave
recovers its original form
fluid, and by the inhomogeneity that the CMB encounters on its journey from the
last scattering surface.
Just as we are not interested in the detail of the density contrasts, we are not
interested either in the detail of the CMB anisotropy. We are interested instead in its
statistical properties. These are described in Appendix A.
The statistical properties of the CMB are determined by those of the primordial
density perturbation. They depend upon all six of the cosmological parameters
shown in Table A.8 of Appendix B. As a result, those parameters are determined
quite accurately, just be the requirement that the statistical properties of the CMB
agrees with observation. Additional observations, notably galaxy surveys, only
slightly alter the estimated values of these parameters, and only slightly increase
their accuracy.
Chapter 12
Galaxy Formation
The large-scale anisotropy of the microwave background and the large-scale fluctuations of
in the mass distribution are discussed under the assumptions that the universe is dominated
by a massive, weakly interacting particle and that the primeval density fluctuations were
adiabatic with the scale-invariant spectrum : : :
(P. J. E. Peebles in The Astrophysical Journal, 1982)
In this chapter I describe galaxy formation. As already mentioned in Chap. 7,

galaxies form when slightly over-dense regions of the Universe attract more matter
and collapse under their own weight. What I want to emphasise here is the
inevitability of the process. That it happens, and when it happens, is a consequence
of the state of affairs in the early Universe, that I described in Chap. 11.
For both the CDM and ordinary matter, the energy density is just c2 times the
mass density and it makes more sense to deal with the latter. The density contrast,
previously defined as the energy density perturbation divided by the average energy
density, can as well be defined as the mass density perturbation divided by the
average mass density. As in the previous chapter, I work with the smoothed density
contrast.
As we saw in Chap. 8, the CDM outweighs the ordinary matter. As a result, the
CDM smoothed density contrast evolves almost as if there were no ordinary matter.
It grows with time because over-dense regions attract more matter towards them.
The growth begins when the smoothing radius becomes less than the distance to
the horizon. During matter domination, the CDM density contrast is proportional to
the scale factor a. The smoothed density contrast has over-dense and under-dense
regions, and as illustrated in Fig. 12.1 each region is roughly as big as the smoothing
radius.
This description of the CDMs density contrast applies while it is much less than
1. When the CDMs density contrast becomes roughly equal to 1 in some region, the
CDM in that region collapses under its own weight. As the collapse proceeds, the
inward motion of the CDM particles is randomised by the effect of gravity, which

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64 12 Galaxy Formation
Fig. 12.1 This is what the smoothed density contrast might look like, in some region of space
at an epoch before the formation of the first objects (galaxies or galaxy clusters, depending
on the smoothing scale). The horizontal axis represents a line in space, centred on a region of
exceptionally high density. There are other over-dense regions as well as under-dense regions, all
with roughly the same size which is about the same as the smoothing radius. Regions that are
sufficiently over-dense will collapse to form a galaxy or galaxy cluster, with the most over-dense
regions collapsing first. The distance along the horizontal axis represents the distance from the
exceptionally over-dense region, divided by a. A fixed point on the horizontal axis is moving with
the expansion
halts the collapse when the collapsing region is about half as big as it was when the
collapse started. We then have an object of fixed size, which is called a CDM halo.
At first, the collapse occurs only at places that represent exceptionally high
peaks of the density contrast, like the one in the centre of Fig. 12.1. That doesnt
significantly affect the density contrast at other locations, which continues to be
proportional to the scale factor a. Eventually though, the collapse occurs even at
peaks that are not exceptionally high. A large fraction of the matter in the Universe
then collapses and we can no longer talk about a perturbation in the density of the
CDM.
On a given scale, the final collapse occurs when the mean-square of the smoothed
CDM density contrast is roughly equal to 1. Before it occurs the mean-square is
proportional to a2 , because the density contrast itself is proportional to a. The mean-
square is biggest on the smallest scales, because its growth started first on those
scales. The lightest CDM halos form when the scale factor a is around 1=10. After
that, successively heavier CDM halos form.
So much for the CDM. What about the ordinary matter? At the epoch of last-
scattering its smoothed density contrast is much smaller than that of the CDM,
because it has been undergoing the acoustic oscillation instead of growing. After
last-scattering, gravity tries to pull the ordinary matter into regions where the CDM
is over-dense. On the other hand, the random motion of the ordinary matter tries to
prevent that from happening. Gravity wins only if the mass of the CDM halo is big
enough. We then have a galaxy or galaxy cluster, whereas for smaller masses we
have a pure CDM halo. Pure CDM halos have not been observed. That is probably
because they collide with each other, to form halos which are big enough to become
galaxies.
12 Galaxy Formation 65
As we saw, the collapse of a CDM halo is halted when the random motion of the
CDM particles becomes big enough to counteract the effect of gravity. The same is
true for the collapse of the ordinary matter, but the ordinary matter collapses further
because it emits electric radiation which tends to reduce the random motion. As a
result, the ordinary matter in a galaxy is confined to a luminous central region, with
the CDM halo around it. Thats why we call it a CDM halo.
The smallest galaxies form first. Successively bigger galaxies form through the
collapse of successively bigger CDM halos, and also through the merging of existing
galaxies.
Once galaxy formation is under way, a collapsing CDM halo sometimes produces
a galaxy cluster instead of an individual galaxy. Successively larger galaxy clusters
form in this way, until we arrive at the epoch when the cosmological constant
starts to becomes significant. The process of gravitational collapse then ceases,
because the gravitational effect of the cosmological constant is repulsive rather than
attractive, as we saw in Chap. 9. If the cosmological constant lives up to its name,
and indeed remains constant in the future, there will never be any gravitationally
bound objects bigger than the biggest galaxy clusters.
Chapter 13
The Higgs Field
. . . as a consequence of this coupling, . . . some of the gauge fields acquire mass . . .

(Peter W. Higgs, in the journal Physical Review Letters, 1964)
In 2012, the discovery of the Higgs boson was announced. It had been created
by particle collisions at the LHC in CERN Geneva, which had at last achieved
the necessary collision energy. The discovery of the Higgs boson provided the
final confirmation that the Standard Model is essentially correct. It also confirmed,
indirectly, the existence of the Higgs field because that is another prediction of the
Standard Model.
In this chapter I will discuss the Higgs field, and its relation to the Higgs boson.
Apart from being important in its own right, this will set the stage for the discussion
of inflation in the following chapters.
Recall that fields and elementary particles are the two kinds of fundamental
objects that are believed to exist. An elementary particle is located at a point in
space, whereas a field exists in an extended region of space or even throughout all
space. We have so far met just two fields, namely the electric field and the magnetic
field. The electric field exists only near an electrically charged object as illustrated
in Fig. 4.4. It doesnt exist in empty space, because matter in bulk is electrically
neutral, and doesnt generate an electric field. The magnetic field on the other hand
exists at some level throughout the Universe. The magnetic field near the Earth is
illustrated in Fig. 4.3.
To specify a magnetic or electric field, we have to specify both its strength and its
direction. The Higgs field instead is specified just by its strength. A field of that kind
is called a scalar field. Throughout the known history of the Universe, the strength
of the Higgs field is homogeneous and constant. This strength is called the vacuum
strength of the Higgs field, to remind us that it exists even in the vacuum.
According to the Standard Model, the vacuum strength of the Higgs field
determines the mass of every elementary particle except the neutrino. That such
a field might exist was suggested by Peter Higgs and others in 1964, some years
before the completion of the Standard Model. In this chapter I will describe the

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68 13 The Higgs Field
Higgs field in the context of the Standard Model which means that I ignore gravity.
As explained in Chap. 7, that means working within a small part of the observable
Universe, for a time that is so short that the expansion can be neglected.
When the Higgs field has its vacuum strength, its energy density is zero. Its
useful also to think about the energy density that the Higgs field would have, if
its strength were homogeneous and constant but different from its vacuum value.
This energy density is called the Higgs potential. A simplified version of the Higgs
potential is shown in Fig. 13.1, and I will use it because the real thing would
complicate the discussion without adding anything very useful.
We see that the Higgs field strength can be either positive or negative, and that
the potential is unaltered if we reverse the sign of the strength. We see also that the
energy density of the Higgs field is zero for two values of the field strength. We
dont know which of these has been chosen by nature as the vacuum value, because
the predictions of the Standard Model are the same for both choices.
If the strength of the Higgs field were homogeneous, but slightly different from
its vacuum value, it would oscillate around that value as illustrated in Fig. 13.2.1
Here is a mechanical analogy. Suppose that you carefully place a ball-bearing on the
surface of the gutter surrounding the roof of your house. If you place it at the bottom
it will stay there, but if you place it away from the bottom it will roll down towards
Fig. 13.1 Simplified version Higgs potential

of the Higgs potential. I
have taken the vacuum value
of the field strength to be
positive as indicated by the
cross. The opposite choice
would lead to the same
physics
Higgs field strength
Fig. 13.2 If the Higgs field Higgs field strength

were slightly different from
its vacuum value, while still
being homogeneous, it would
oscillate around the vacuum
value. This would
corresponds to the presence
of Higgs bosons. Since the
Higgs boson decays, its
number density decreases
with time and so does the
amplitude of the oscillation
time
1
That doesnt actually happen during the known history of the Universe, but it might have happened
earlier. Whether it did or not, its useful to discuss it as a hypothetical possibility.
13 The Higgs Field 69
the bottom. Then, if the gutter is smooth enough, the ball bearing will oscillate a
few times before finally coming to rest.
Thats enough for now about the Higgs field. What about the Higgs boson? The
Higgs boson is related to the Higgs field in the same way that the photon is related
to the electromagnetic field. Electromagnetic radiation, which consists of oscillating
electric and magnetic fields, can be thought of as a collection of photons. In the same
way, an oscillating Higgs field can be regarded as a collection of Higgs bosons. If
the oscillating field is homogeneous, the Higgs bosons are at rest.
With the homogeneous oscillation in mind, we can understand how the vacuum
value of the Higgs field strength generates masses for the other elementary particles.
To do that, we have to realise that each elementary particle comes with a field. The
fields of the other Standard Model particles are not scalar fields, and those of the
quarks and leptons are essentially quantum objects that cannot be described using
the language of classical physics, but they still exist. What the vacuum value of the
Higgs field does, is to allow a homogeneous oscillation of the field of each particle.
The homogeneous oscillation corresponds to a particle with mass. If the vacuum
value of the Higgs field were zero, a homogeneous oscillation would be impossible.
Instead, the oscillation would have to correspond to a wave travelling with the speed
of light, and the particles would have zero mass.
In this discussion I have been assuming that the Standard Model is exactly
correct. More probably, it will be some extension of the Standard Model that is
correct. In some extensions, elementary particle masses depend on the vacuum
values of two or more scalar fields and all of them are called Higgs fields. A Higgs
boson has been observed at the LHC, which is referred to as the Higgs boson. In
truth, we do not yet know whether it is the Higgs boson of the Standard Model or
a Higgs boson of some extension. The matter is likely to be clarified in the near
future, by more detailed observations.
Finally, I need to revisit the vacuum value of the Higgs field. When we talk
about the vacuum value, we are ignoring quantum physics. When quantum physics
is included, one finds that the strength of the Higgs field in the vacuum actually
fluctuates around the vacuum value, varying with both time and position. This
is called the vacuum fluctuation of the Higgs field. Every field has a vacuum
fluctuation, and a similar fluctuation will be important when we come to inflation.
Chapter 14
Inflation
: : :.. hot big-bang cosmology requires initial conditions which are problematic : : :. These
problems would disappear if, in its early history [the universe underwent] a period of
exponential growth : : :.
(A. Guth in Physical Review 1980.)
Now its time to deal with the era of inflation, which is believed to cause the Big
Bang. In this chapter I explain how inflation can generate an almost homogeneous
Universe. In the next I explain how it can generate the observed perturbations.
During the Big Bang, gravity is attractive; it pulls different parts of the Universe
towards each other which slows down the expansion rate. During inflation, gravity is
instead repulsive, speeding up the expansion rate. To achieve that, the energy density
cannot be dominated by the contribution of particles. It must instead be dominated
by the contribution of fields. The simplest assumption, which I will adopt, is that it
is dominated by the potential of a single scalar field, called the inflaton field.
To achieve inflation, the inflaton field must vary slowly. That can happen if the
potential has an almost flat region as shown in Fig. 14.1. Inflation ends when the
inflaton field leaves the flat region, and starts to oscillate around its vacuum value.
That corresponds to a Universe filled with inflaton particles. The inflaton particles
are supposed to decay, to eventually produce the particle species that are present at
the beginning of the known history.
To do the job of creating the Universe that we observe, its essential that inflation
begins when the expansion rate aP is much smaller than it is now. We have, then,
two eras of inflation; an early era when the expansion rate is smaller than it is
now, and a later era when it is bigger. The two eras do different jobs. The first
era dilutes the energy density of any particles that might be present initially, so
that the energy density of the inflaton field becomes completely dominant. This era
also produces a practically homogeneous observable Universe, with the properties
required by observation. The second era generates an energy density perturbation,
that will become the one existing at the beginning of the known history.

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72 14 Inflation
inflaton potential
inflaton field
Fig. 14.1 A possible shape for the inflaton potential. Near the potentials maximum, there is a
region within which it is much flatter than is the Higgs potential. If the inflaton is within that
region, as indicated by the cross, it can change very slowly and cause inflation. Inflation ends when
the inflaton field leaves the flat region, and starts to oscillate around its vacuum value
To do its part of the job, the first era must last for a sufficiently long time.
Given that, let us see how the job is done. The first era makes the energy density
homogeneous by driving energy away from regions of higher energy density into
regions with lower energy density.1 As a result, the inflaton field also becomes
practically homogeneous and so does the rate of expansion. The first era makes
the expansion practically isotropic simply because, according to General Relativity,
any anisotropy of the expansion always decreases with time. Finally, as we see in
Appendix A the fact that the expansion rate increases with time means that it will
give critical energy density.
The way in which the second era can generate the energy density perturbation
will be described in the next chapter. To get the statistical properties required by
observation, the energy density during the second era must have some roughly
constant value. This value is not known, but observation does tell us something
about it. This is because the second era does something else in addition to generating
the energy density perturbation; it generates a gravitational radiation background.
The intensity of the gravitational radiation background depends on the value of the
energy density during the second era, and the fact that the gravitational radiation
background has not so far been observed tells us that the energy density during the
second era of inflation can be at most about 1064 times its value at the beginning
of the known history. If the energy density is not much below that limit, the
gravitational radiation background will eventually be detected. It remains to be seen
whether Nature has been so kind as to provide such a large energy density.
1
Energy is driven away from over-dense regions because gravity is repulsive. This is in contrast
with the situation after inflation, when attractive gravity pulls matter (and its rest energy) towards
regions where there is already more matter leading eventually to the formation of galaxies.
14 Inflation 73
Some history
An era of inflation was suggested around 1980 by several people, including
Alan Guth who gave inflation its name. None of them explained how inflation
would end. The first viable proposals for ending inflation were made in 1982, in
a paper by Andrei Linde and another by Andreas Albrecht and Paul Steinhardt.
These proposals invoked an inflaton potential with the shape shown in Fig. 14.1,
that includes a nearly flat region. Linde in 1983 pointed out that the expansion
of the Universe can make the inflaton field vary slowly even if its potential isnt
particularly flat. He also pointed out that there is no need for inflation to be
preceded by another Hot Big Bang, as had previously been assumed.
Who is the inflaton?

Only one scalar field is part of the Standard Model, namely the Higgs field. The
Higgs field can be the inflaton if we dont insist on General Relativity during
inflation, but we have to make sure that General Relativity still holds during
the known history. Alternatively, the Higgs field can be the inflaton if we alter
the Standard Models prediction for the effect of the Higgs potential on the
evolution of the Higgs field, but we have to make sure that the small oscillation
of the Higgs field around its vacuum value (corresponding to Higgs bosons) is
not significantly affected.
As both of these modifications are rather drastic they are usually ruled out.
That has the unfortunate effect of ruling out, not just the Higgs field but any
field that is part of a an extension of the Standard Model that has been proposed
for reasons not having to do with inflation.
74 14 Inflation
A varying dark energy?

As we noticed in Chap. 5, the energy density of the present Universe comes only
partly from the particles that it contains. There is an additional contribution
which, as far as we can tell, is constant. Taking that to be the case, the
additional contribution is called the cosmological constant and is supposed to
be a property of the vacuum.
It may be though, that the additional contribution varies with time. If that
is the case, we had better call it just dark energy, rather than a cosmological
constant. A time-varying dark energy cannot belong to the vacuum, because the
vacuum is something that doesnt change with time. It might correspond instead
come from the potential of some scalar field. Adopting that hypothesis, the
dark energy is called quintessence, and the field responsible for it is called the
quintessence field. The quintessence field cannot be the Higgs field, because a
displacement of the Higgs field from its vacuum value would cause oscillations
corresponding to the existence of Higgs bosons. To avoid such an oscillation,
the quintessence field presumably needs to be on a nearly flat part of its
potential. In that respect, the quintessence potential would be like the inflaton
potential illustrated in Fig. 14.1, only much smaller because the vacuum energy
density is much smaller than the energy density during inflation.
The idea of quintessence, is that the dark energy density would be zero if
the quintessence field had its vacuum value. That sounds reasonable, but the
problem is that there is no known reason why the energy density of the vacuum
should be zero. In particular, there is no known symmetry of quantum field that
would ensure that. Nevertheless, the quintessence idea is taken very seriously
by the cosmology community and there is intense interest in future observations
that may show a change in the dark energy density as we go back in time.
Chapter 15
Generating the Perturbation
: : :. models in which the de Sitter stage exists : : : are attractive because fluctuations of the
metric sufficient for galaxy formation can occur.
(G. Chibisov and V. Mukhanov, in Soviet Physics, 1982)
In this chapter we will see how the second era of inflation can generate the energy
density perturbation, that exists at the beginning of known history. The job might be
done by a perturbation in the inflaton field, or else through a perturbation in some
other scalar field.
To describe the perturbation in a scalar field, its useful to smooth the field just
as we smoothed the energy density. As in that case, we take the smoothing radius to
be proportional to a, and call the present smoothing radius the smoothing scale.
To understand the behaviour of the smoothed inflaton field, we need a couple of
new quantities.1 We need the Hubble time which is the time taken for the Universe
to expand appreciably. We also need the Hubble distance which is c times the
Hubble time (in other words, the distance that a photon would travel in a Hubble
time).
At the beginning of the second era, the smoothing radius on cosmological scales
is smaller than the Hubble distance. When quantum physics is taken on board, that
has an important implication. It means that smoothed inflaton field doesnt actually
have the the precise value that I talked about in Chap. 14. Instead, it is fluctuating
around that value. This quantum fluctuation of the inflaton field is analogous to the
fluctuation of the Higgs field about its vacuum value.
As the second era proceeds, the smoothing radius becomes bigger than the
Hubble distance. That happens on successively smaller cosmological scales, starting
with the biggest one. When it happens, the smoothed inflaton field stops fluctuating
and only changes slowly. Its perturbation generates a perturbation in the smoothed
energy density, which in the simplest scenario becomes the primordial energy
1
These are approximate definitions, see Appendix 2 for the exact definitions.

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76 15 Generating the Perturbation
density perturbation described in Chap. 11. In that scenario, the adiabatic condition
is automatically satisfied because the smoothed inflaton field at a given location
determines all of the future properties of the smoothed energy density.
In alternative scenarios, the primordial energy density perturbation instead
originates from the perturbation of a scalar field different from the inflaton field.
Those scenarios dont automatically lead to the adiabatic condition.
Schrdingers Cat in the Sky
The idea that the energy density perturbation originated as a quantum fluctuation
during inflation is widely accepted. It raises though a serious problem, which also
arises when we try to use quantum physics to describe collision and decay processes.
The problem arises, because quantum physics really describes only the outcome
of measurements. It tells us the probability for the various outcomes of the
measurement, but it doesnt tell us what was there before the measurement was
performed.
To understand the problem, we can focus on a decay process. In Chap. 6, I said
that Fig. 6.2 shows the probability that a neutron will have decayed after a certain
length of time. According to that interpretation, if a neutron exists at some time then
there is 50 % probability that it will have decayed after 15 minutes. A curve of the
same shape applies to the decay of any particle, or nucleus.
Now, according to quantum physics the interpretation that I gave the curve is not
actually correct. According to quantum physics, the curve only gives the probability
that a measurement will find that the neutron has decayed. But it seems silly to insert
the words in italics! Surely, the neutron would have decayed even if we had not made
the measurement? The problem is, that according to quantum physics that is not the
case. Instead, according to quantum physics, the neutron before the measurement
was in what is called a superposition of decayed and not-decayed states. It doesnt
matter what superposition means. What matters, is what it doesnt mean. It doesnt
mean that the neutron had either decayed or not decayed and that the measurement
will reveal which is the case.
The superposition of states is ubiquitous in quantum physics, and is certainly
required for the correct description of very small things. But it doesnt seem
to correspond with reality when applied to things of ordinary size. This was
highlighted in 1935 by Erwin Schrdinger, one of the founders of quantum physics,
who invited us to consider the following situation. A cat is put into a closed box, in
which there is a substance containing atoms, whose nuclei decay with an extremely
long lifetime. The lifetime is so long that there is only a 50 % probability that just
one nucleus decays within say an hour. Within the box there is decay-detecting
apparatus. If the apparatus finds that a decay has occurred, it opens a phial of poison
that kills the cat.
According to quantum physics, the whole content of the box is in a superposition
of decayed and not-decayed states, which means that the cat is in a superposition of
Schrdingers Cat in the Sky 77
alive and dead states. Now we open the box after an hour and of course find the cat
either alive or dead. If its alive we can be sure its been alive all the time, and if its
dead the time of its death could be determined by examining the body. Either way,
we know that it was never in the superposition of alive and dead states that quantum
physics requires.
With the generation of the curvature perturbation, we are in the same situation.
According to quantum physics, the Universe is in a superposition of states. The
curvature perturbation is different for each state, and each state corresponds to a
Universe that might exist. But only one of the superposition corresponds to the
Universe that actually does exist. This is ridiculous, because according to quantum
physics the Universe will be in a definite only after a measurement is made.
So a galaxy, for instance will not exist before it is observed. This is even more
nonsensical than Schrdingers cat!
The obvious solution, for the cat and the Universe, is to suppose that quantum
physics isnt correct for big things. For the decay, to suppose that the decay actually
occurs when it is detected by the apparatus, and for the curvature perturbation to
suppose that it acquires a definite value before it has any observable effect. That
solution is not as straightforward as it looks and is not popular. At the moment, the
usual attitude among physicists is that quantum physics is absolutely correct and its
our job to interpret it. Unfortunately, there is no consensus about how to do that.
I am assuming that there are no particles during the second stage of inflation.
A scenario there are particles has been proposed, called Warm Inflation. The
particles are being generated continuously and are supposed to be in thermal
equilibrium. Their contribution to the energy will be determined by thermal
equilibrium and it will vary with position and time. This thermal fluctuation
could be responsible for the generation of , instead of the quantum fluctuation
of a scalar field.
Historical note In 1982, several papers proposed that the primordial energy
density perturbation originates from the inflaton field perturbation. In 2002
it was proposed instead that the it originates from the perturbation of a field
different from the inflaton, which was called the curvaton field. The proposal
was made in a paper by T. Moroi, and in another paper by the present author
and D. Wands. Several similar proposals followed.
Chapter 16
Prehistory of the Big Bang
It is shown that at a temperature higher than about 102 GeV the symmetry broken at lower
temperature is re-established: : :.
D. A. Kirzhnits and A. D. Linde in the journal Physics Letters B (1972).
It is natural to ask what happened, between the end of inflation and the beginning
of the known history. To answer that question, we have to make assumptions which
may or may not be correct. Most importantly, we have to make an assumption about
the energy density at the end of inflation. As we saw in Chap. 14, the energy density
at the end of inflation might be anything up to 1064 times as big as at the beginning
of the known history.
When inflation ends, the inflaton field begins to oscillate corresponding to
the presence of inflaton particles. This marks the beginning of the Big Bang.
As the inflaton field is nearly homogenous, the particles have negligible random
motion. In the terminology of Chap. 8, we are dealing with a matter-dominated
era.1 The matter-dominated era ends when the matter particles decay, to produce
a radiation-dominated Universe.2 The radiation particles presumably undergo col-
lision processes, which quickly establish thermal equilibrium at a temperature that
is determined by the energy density. This marks the beginning of what is called the
Hot Big Bang.
To discuss the Hot Big Bang, we have to make an assumption about the
temperature when it begins. Equivalently, we have to make an assumption about
kT, the temperature times the Boltzmann constant. As we saw in Chap. 9, it is kT
1
If inflation involves more than one field, more than one field might be oscillating corresponding
to the presence of more than one particle species. They would still constitute matter.
2
To be precise, that is when matter-domination finally ends. Before the particles decay, the
oscillating field can lose energy by a process called preheating, which involves the field itself
and has nothing to do with particles. The particles created by preheating can constitute radiation,
but the density of such radiation will fall more quickly than the energy density of the oscillating
field and the latter is expected to dominate by the time that the inflaton particles decay.

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80 16 Prehistory of the Big Bang
that determines the properties of a cosmic gas. In particular, the average energy of
the photons is 2:7kT, and the average kinetic energies of the other species are about
the same.
If the Hot Big Bang begins just before the known history, kT will only be a few
MeV as shown in Table 7.1. But as we saw in Chap. 14, it might instead begin when
the energy density is up to 1064 times bigger. If the energy density is that high, kT
will be about 1016 MeV.3
Prehistory According to the Standard Model
I will first describe the prehistory assuming that the Standard Model accounts for
everything, even though we know that this cannot be completely correct. Let us
suppose first that it begins when kT is bigger than 105 MeV.4
In this case, the collision processes occur with enough kinetic energy to create all
of the elementary particles described by the Standard Model.5 There are no hadrons,
nuclei or atoms because if any of these objects managed to form they would quickly
be blown apart by collisions.
The state of thermal equilibrium is determined by the temperature, and the
densities of the three conserved quantities that we encountered in Chap. 9. These
are electric charge, baryon number and lepton. The amount of each of these carried
by each particle is shown in Table A.6 of Appendix B.
As the amount of each conserved quantity within an expanding region is constant,
its density is proportional to 1=a3 . The density of each conserved quantity is
therefore determined by its density at the beginning of the known history. This is
zero for the charge and is assumed to be zero for the lepton number, but it is nonzero
and positive for the baryon number. The positive baryon number implies that there
are slightly more quarks than anti-quarks.
As the Universe expands, it cools and the distance between the particles
increases. To understand what happens next, one needs to know that a quark or
gluon can exist, only if there are other quarks and gluons within a distance of about
1015 metres. This ceases to be true when kT falls to about 100 MeV. The quarks
and gluons are then replaced by hadrons, which are made out of quarks. Of the
hadrons, the proton is stable, and the neutron has a longish half-life (15 minutes).
3
As we saw in Chap. 8, kT is proportional to 1=a while the energy density during radiation
domination is proportional to 1=a4 .
4
Using the GeV unit, that is bigger than 102 GeV which means that I am describing the scenario
first considered by Kirzhnits and Linde in the paper cited at the beginning of this chapter.
5
The quarks and leptons actually have zero mass when kT is bigger than 105 MeV, because high
temperature changes the Higgs potential, so that its minimum value corresponds to zero Higgs
field. When kT falls below 105 MeV the Higgs potential reverts to its usual form and the quarks
and leptons acquire their mass.
Creating the CDM 81
But all other hadrons have very short lifetimes; they quickly decay, and are not re-
created because their rest energies are bigger than the kinetic energies of the photons
and leptons that might have done the job. At about the same time, the Higgs bosons
decay for the same reason, as do Z and W bosons and the and leptons listed in
Table A.4. We are left with just the particle species that are present at the beginning
of the known history of the Universe.
If kT is less than 100 MeV at the start of the Hot Big Bang, the history is the
same except that there are never any isolated quarks and gluons, only hadrons.
Creating the CDM
The prehistory that I have given assumes that there are more u and d quarks than
anti-u and anti-d quarks. If the numbers were equal, the quarks would produce
equal numbers of protons and anti-protons (and equal numbers of neutrons and
anti-neutrons) which would annihilate. As a result, the Universe would contain no
ordinary matter. It may be that the excess of quarks over anti-quarks is produced
by the decay of the inflaton, in which case the excess would not require any
modification of the prehistory. More usually, it is supposed that the excess is created
later through some modification of the prehistory. To keep things simple though, I
wont discuss the latter possibility, since it is after all optional.
What I do need to discuss, is the creation of CDM. Thats compulsory because
the Standard Model contains no species that could be the CDM. In contrast with the
situation for the inflaton, there are extensions of the Standard Model that include
a CDM candidate, and yet are motivated by considerations that have nothing to do
with CDM. There are two such extensions and I discuss them in turn.
According to one extension, the CDM is a particle species called the axion, which
corresponds to the oscillation of a scalar field called the axion field. This extension
is motivated by the fact that, according to the Standard Model, the neutron should be
surrounded by an electric field even though it is on average electrically neutral.6 The
strength of the electric field is determined by a parameter of the Standard Model,
and the fact that it has not been observed requires the parameter to be less than
1012 . The axion extension of the Standard Model explains why the parameter is so
small.
There are two possible scenarios for producing axion CDM. In one scenario,
the axion field is homogeneous during inflation, except for a small perturbation
generated from the vacuum fluctuation. After inflation, the axion field oscillates
around its vacuum value corresponding to the presence of axions. In this scenario the
adiabatic condition is not exactly satisfied, because the axion field has a perturbation
on cosmological scales that is different from the inflaton fields perturbation, but
6
The field arises because, according to the Standard Model, there is a small positive charge within
one hemisphere of the neutron, and an opposite negative charge within the opposite hemisphere.
the departure from the adiabatic condition can be too small to observe. In the
other scenario, axion field appears only after inflation, and the adiabatic condition
is almost exactly satisfied on cosmological scales. On very small scales though,
the CDM density perturbation is much bigger than the one corresponding to the
adiabatic condition. This scenario predicts the existence of very small pure CDM
halos. They have not been observed, but that may be because they have merged like
the bigger pure CDM halos mentioned in Chap. 12. Both scenarios can therefore be
in accordance with observation.
The interaction of axions with Standard Model particles is rather weak, in
accordance with the fact that the axions are CDM, but it exists and it may allow
the detection of axion CDM. Also, the interaction means that axions are emitted by
the Sun whether or not they are the CDM. Experiments are underway to detect both
CDM axions and solar axions.
So much for the axion extension of the Standard Model. The other extension,
invoking what is called supersymmetry, is motivated by what is called the hierarchy
problem. The hierarchy problem is the fact that the Standard Model gives a quantum
contribution to the mass of the Higgs boson that is far bigger than the observed
quantity. That is similar to the situation for the cosmological constant depicted in
Fig. 8.1 and it has the same implication; there must be another classical contri-
bution to the Higgs mass, which almost exactly cancels the quantum contribution.
The supersymmetry scenario seeks to avoid the hierarchy problem, by giving each
Standard Model species a superpartner. The quantum contribution to the Higgs
boson mass then becomes about the same as the mass of a typical superpartner. The
hierarchy problem would be completely removed if the superpartners were only
about as heavy as the Higgs boson. That is ruled out by the fact that superpartners
have not been produced at the LHC. There remains the possibility though, that the
superpartners exist and are only say ten or a hundred times heavier than the Higgs
boson. Then the difference between the classical and quantum contributions would
be 10 % or 1 % which might not be regarded as a problem.
With supersymmetry, the prehistory of the Hot Big Bang is the same until
after the electroweak transition, except for the presence of the superpartners. After
the electroweak transition though, the superpartners decay except for the lightest
superpartner which is stable and is the CDM candidate.
The generic name for any CDM particle with properties similar to the lightest
superpartner is Weakly Interacting Massive Particle, abbreviated to WIMP. As with
the axion, experiments are underway to detect WIMP CDM through its interaction
with Standard Model particles. The interaction might allow the direct detection
of WIMPs, or their indirect detection through electromagnetic radiation emitted
when WIMPs in our galaxy collide.7 It might also allow WIMPs to be produced
at the LHC. If the WIMPs are light, they might have significant random motion
corresponding to what is called Warm Dark Matter. That might be detected by
7
Radiation is observed coming from the centre of our galaxy, for which WIMP collisions provide
one of the most plausible explanationsbut unfortunately not the only one.
What Might Future Observations Find? 83
comparing the structure of galaxies with the outcome of computer simulations of

their formation.
Is that All?
There might be other species in addition to the ones that I have described. One
possibility is to have a species that is abundant at early times and decays around the
time that light nuclei form. As was mentioned in Chap. 7, that could affect the 7 Li
abundance.
There are also much wider possibilities. To take an extreme example, there
are plausible extensions of the Standard Model that would allow a mirror world
consisting of particle species exactly like ours with the same interactions. Then
there would be mirror-atoms made out of mirror-protons, neutrons and electrons,
a mirror-photon, a mirror electromagnetic field and so on. Even mirror-planets and
mirror-people! The interaction of the mirror world with Standard Model particles
could be too tiny to have any significant effect, and if there isnt too much mirror
stuff it wouldnt have a significant gravitational effect either. Such things are
interesting to contemplate, but were never going to know whether they exist or
not.
What Might Future Observations Find?
Ive now finished my account of cosmology, as it stands today. It remains to ask what
the future may hold. The most dramatic cosmological discovery would be to detect
the gravitational wave background. That would be a very strong indication that
inflation occurred, because the gravitational wave background includes wavelengths
not much less than the size of the observable Universe that could hardly have been
generated by any other mechanism. Moreover, it would tell us that inflation occurred
at a very early stage, leaving plenty of time for things to happen between the end of
inflation and the beginning of the known history.
A less dramatic discovery would be a departure from the adiabatic condition,
which relates the primordial energy density perturbations to the primordial curvature
perturbation. As we saw in Chap. 16, such a departure is possible if, for example,
the CDM consists of axions. Unfortunately though, there is no particular reason to
think that the departure will be at a level that will be observable in the near future.
A discovery that the dark energy varies with time would also be very interesting. It
would mean that it it doesnt come from the vacuum but instead, presumably, from
some quintessence field.
There is the possibility of finding out more about the CDM as mentioned earlier.
It could be that the CDM comes from two or more particle species. Conceivably,
it could be that the CDM doesnt consist of particles at all, but of sizeable objects.
These couldnt be made out of ordinary matter. They might be black holes formed
before the beginning of the known history though the mass of such black holes must
lie within a very narrow range.
Cosmic strings; an idea that didnt work

In this book I have focussed on ideas about the early Universe that are known
to be correct, or at least are not ruled out by observation. Of course there have
been plenty of other ideas, that seemed promising at first but were later ruled
out by observation. Here is the story of a famous example.
It starts in the late 1970s, when an extension of the Standard Model called
Grand Unified Theory (GUT) was proposed. Around 1980, it was realised that
such an extension would allow the creation of what are called cosmic strings.
A cosmic string is a concentration of energy within a tube, which is so narrow
so that it can for most purposes be regarded as a line. The energy within the
string comes from fields that are far from their vacuum values.
The GUT cosmic strings would form a network, consisting of both long lines
and small loops. It was proposed that galaxies formed, not in regions where the
cosmic gas was denser than average, but instead around cosmic string loops.
That idea seemed reasonable because a loop attracts matter towards it by the
force of gravity, just like an over-dense region of the gas. Unfortunately, it
failed to account for observation (in particular for the CMB anisotropy) and
was abandoned in the early 1990s.
There remained the possibility that the network of GUT cosmic strings could
exist. If so, a pair of strings would occasionally intersect and it was shown that
this would lead to the emission of a gravitational waves. It was also shown that
it would cause a variation in the observed period of pulsars, whose magnitude
was calculated. The failure to detect a variation of the required magnitude in
the 2000s ruled out the GUT cosmic strings.
It is still possible that a network of cosmic strings exist, similar to the GUT
strings but with a lower mass per unit length. In particular, there could be a
network consisting of the strings of string theory. Such a network might be
detected in the future, but it would have nothing to with galaxy formation.
Chapter 17
What About Us?
We must therefore not be discouraged by the difficulty of interpreting life by the ordinary
laws of physics. : : :. We must also be prepared to find a new type of physical law prevailing
in it.
(Erwin Schrdinger in What is life (1944).)
Physics explains how a rather ordinary sequence of events led to the present
Universe. Wouldnt you agree, now that youve read the book? If you would, you
are forgetting about ourselves. We are part of the Universe but we somehow dont fit
into the general scheme of things. How has it come about, that a few thousand of the
species of ape that we call human have managed to figure out how their Universe
began? Has the same thing been done elsewhere? If so, by what kind of creature?
Leaving aside these probably for ever unanswerable questions, one might hope
that physics will some day describe living things. At first sight, that looks promising.
The first step was taken in 1859 by Charles Darwin, who declared that the species
are not immutable. One species can change into another and in particular humans
are descended from apes. The idea was greeted with outrage at the time. Now, except
by a lunatic fringe, it is regarded as obvious. How else could the diversity of species
have come about?
How did life itself arise? The issue wasnt mentioned by Darwin in any
publication. I suppose he felt that he was in enough trouble already. But we
know from his correspondence that he was aware of the obvious answer. Living
things evolved from non-living molecules. This too is now accepted as obvious by
practically everybody. How else could life have originated?
The life sciences have yet to identify for sure the sequence of events leading
from molecules to life, though recent research is pointing to a plausible scenario.
They have though, established the the molecular structure of the basic components
of each living thing, and how those components are put together.
So it looks as if physics ought to be able to describe life. There is a fundamental
problem though, which is the extreme complexity of even the simplest living thing.
Its one thing to understand the basic components, but quite another to understand

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-22744-3_17
86 17 What About Us?
how they are put together. That problem will never go away. A more particular
problem, at least for now, is that we dont have a theory that would do the job.
The quantum physics that seems to work for molecules and other small collections
of particles, seems not to work for large objects. Even if the basic equations are
accepted as correct, their interpretation in terms of reality is quite obscure.
If we do manage to get a physics description of a living thing, its extreme
complexity will surely require concepts of which we at present have no idea. That
will be analogous to the situation of statistical mechanics, that we encountered
in Chap. 9. It involves concepts like temperature, that dont apply to individual
collisions within a gas, but they do apply to the gas as a whole.
After the physics description of a living thing, there remains its consciousness.
I dont think the physics discussion has much to say about that, except for one
thing. Thats the issue of whether your consciousness can, by itself, tell you anything
about the outside world. It certainly tells you about the experiences of other people,
and to some extent about the experiences of other living things, because they are
similar to yourself. But does it tell you anything else? People through the ages have
thought so, but theres no basis in physics for that belief. We are made of atoms
and molecules, which have significant communication with the outside world only
through the limited means that we call the five senses. Only by using those can we,
according to physics, learn anything about the outside world.
Appendix A
More Detail with Some Mathematics
Chapter 3 The Fundamental Theories
Gravity
According to both Newton and Einstein, gravity at a given location gives every
object the same acceleration no matter how light or heavy it is. According to
Newton, the acceleration caused by an object with mass M at a distance r from
the object is GM=r2 . The acceleration due to a one-kilogram weight at a distance
of one metre is therefore 6:67 1011 metres per second per second. Thats not
much acceleration, but it can be measured in an experiment that physics students
sometimes do in the laboratory.
The acceleration of gravity at the Earths surface is much stronger. It comes from
every piece of the Earth, but Newton showed that its the same as if the entire mass
of the Earth were located at its centre. The mass of the Earth is 5:97 1024 kg and
its radius is about 6:4 106 metres, which gives 9:9 metres per second per second
for the acceleration.
By the weight of an object, we mean the force that gravity exerts on the object
on the surface of the Earth. According to Newton, this force is equal to the mass of
the object times the acceleration of gravity. When we specify the weight of an object
in, say, kilograms we are implicitly choosing the distance and time units so that the
acceleration of gravity is equal to 1.
The full theory of gravity is provided by Einsteins General Relativity. If gravity
is weak we can describe gravity by introducing a gravitational field. If the
gravitational field is slowly varying, and we only consider the motion of objects
moving with speed much less than c, we arrive at Newtons theory of gravity in
which the gravitational field is similar to the electric field, being specified by its
strength and direction.

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-22744-3
88 A More Detail with Some Mathematics
The Principle of Relativity
Special and General Relativity are so-called because they invoke the Principle of
Relativity, that was first described by Galileo in 1632. (The other word, Special,
means that gravity is being ignored in contrast with General Relativity which
includes gravity.) The Principle of Relativity says that the laws of physics dont
depend on the velocity of the observer that is invoking them.1 As Galileo pointed
out, that implies that its meaningless to talk about the velocity of an object. We can
only talk about the velocity of an object, as measured by some observer. We could
talk about the velocity of an object, only if we could talk about the observer. But
according to the Principle Relativity, all observers moving with constant velocity
have the same status and none of them can be regarded as the observer.
Maxwells discovery of Classical Electrodynamics raised a serious problem
for the Principle of Relativity. The problem was that Classical Electrodynamics
requires electromagnetic radiation (in particular light) to always move with the same
speed c. But the Principle of Relativity requires that Classical Electrodynamics
is valid for every observer (moving with constant velocity). Therefore, Classical
Electrodynamics and the Principle of Relativity, taken together, require the speed of
light to be independent of the observer.
On the basis of our everyday experience, that doesnt seem to make sense.
Suppose I measure the speed of light passing by me, and someone also measures that
speed in a car which is travelling at 50 kilometres per hour in the same direction as
the light. We would expect the other person to find a speed which was 50 kilometres
per hour smaller than the speed that I find. In fact, they would find the same speed.
Special and General Relativity provide new descriptions of space and time, that
are different from the one suggested by everyday experience and which do make the
speed of light the same for all observers. Everyday experience is misleading here,
because it only involves speeds much less than c. If, instead of light, some object
passes by me and I find its speed to be say 1000 kilometres per hour, then the person
in the car will find to high accuracy that the objects speed is only 950 kilometres per
hour. Thats because 1000 kilometres per hour is a lot less than the speed of light.
By virtue of the Principle of Relativity, the Standard Model description of
collision and decay processes is valid for any observer moving with constant
velocity. I assumed that implicitly in Chap. 6, by choosing the observer of a decaying
particle to be moving with the particle.
1
The observer is not supposed to feel any acceleration. In the context of Special Relativity, which
ignores gravity, we can simply say that the observer is not accelerating. Including gravity, we
should say that the observer is in free fall, as defined in Chap. 7.
Chapter 9 In the Beginning 89
Chapter 8 Energy Density of the Universe
Here is why the energy of radiation within an expanding region of the Universe is
is proportional to 1=a. Pressure is force per unit area, and when a force pushes
something a certain distance the energy expended is equal to the force times
the distance. From this, it follows that when the volume of an expanding region
increases by an infinitesimal amount dV, the energy changes by an amount dE D
p dV where p is the pressure.2
The energy within a region with volume V is V where is the energy density.
As we are dealing with radiation the constituents of the gas move with speeds close
to c. The kinetic theory of gases shows that p D =3 in that case. It follows that
dE=E D 13 dV=V. Since V is proportional to a3 , dE=E D da=a. This implies that
E D b C d=a where b and d are constants, but b D 0 because E D 0 when V D 0
so indeed E is proportional to 1=a. From that, it follows that the energy density of
radiation is proportional to 1=a4 .
This calculation assumes that the radiation does not significantly gain or lose
energy to the matter. Also, it applies to each individual component of the radiation,
if there is no significant exchange of energy between the components. Both of those
things are true in the expanding Universe, except around the epoch of electron-
positron annihilation.
Chapter 9 In the Beginning
The properties of a homogeneous gas are completely specified by giving the

distribution function of each constituent. Figure A.1 explains how that works.
The constituents of the early Universe are particles, and its properties are specified
by giving the distribution function of each species. From the distribution function
one can deduce the total energy density of the species, and its number density. We
are also interested in the average energy of a particle, which is the energy density
divided by the number density.
Figure A.1 shows the photon distribution function, that is established by thermal
equilibrium during the first stage of the known history of the Universe. This is called
the blackbody distribution.3 Figure A.2 shows the same thing for the neutrinos,
electrons and positrons. Table A.2 show the energy density, number density and
average particle energy for these particles. All of them constitute radiation. The
protons and neutrons constitute matter. The energy density of the radiation is
2
This calculation ignores heat flow, which indeed is absent since we are considering the
homogeneous Universe.
3
The blackbody distribution applies whenever photons are being freely created and destroyed by
processes in thermal equilibrium.
f
0.14
0.12
0.10
0.08
0.06
0.04
0.02
x
2 4 6 8 10
Fig. A.1 The blackbody distribution The distribution function of photons in thermal equilibrium
is called the blackbody distribution. The vertical axis shows the blackbody distribution function in
units of .kT/4 =.c/3 , which is denoted by f . The horizontal axis is the photon energy in units of kT,
which is denoted by x. The energy density of those photons with x in a given infinitesimal range,
is equal to f times the range
0.05
0.04
0.03
0.02
0.01
x
2 4 6 8 10
Fig. A.2 This gives the distribution function of each neutrino (and anti-neutrino) species. The
notation is the same as in Fig. A.1 with now T the neutrino temperature. Before electron-positron
annihilation, the electron and positron distribution functions have the same shape but but are twice
as big
proportional to T 4 . As we saw earlier, it is also proportional to 1=a4 which means

that T is proportional to 1=a.
These results hold until the first stage ends, at the epoch of electron-positron
annihilation. Using the fact that entropy is conserved during thermal equilibrium,
one can show that electron-positron annihilation boosts the photon temperature
by a factor .11=4/1=3, relative to the neutrino temperature which continues to be
proportional to 1=a. Table A.3 shows the resulting number and energy densities,
for the photons and for the neutrinos. The photon energy density is 1:46 times the
neutrino energy density, which is in agreement with the observed values shown in
Table 8.1. There is now just one electron per proton, and the electrons are matter as
opposed to radiation.
Chapter 10 Friedmann Tells the Time 91
Instead of specifying the baryon number density during the first stage of the
history, its more convenient to specify the baryon number per photon. This is 4=11
times its present value, because the baryon number density is proportional to 1=a3 ,
but the photon number density is boosted by a factor 11=4 at electron-positron
annihilation. From observation, we know that the present baryon number per photon
is 6:1 1010 . During the first stage, the baryon number per photon is therefore
1:68 109 .
Chapter 10 Friedmann Tells the Time
I give here some consequences of the Friedmann equation, which is
8Ga2
aP 2 D CK
3c2
Critical density corresponds to K D 0. According to observation, jKj is less than

one percent of aP 2 at present, and much less at earlier times. I therefore set K D 0.
The Timescale
As well as the scale factor a and the expansion rate aP , its useful to consider the
Hubble parameter H D aP =a and the Hubble time 1=H. If gravity had no effect, aP
would be constant and the Hubble time would be the age of the Universe. We shall
see that this remains approximately true during the Big Bang even with gravity taken
into account.
The Friedmann equation gives
da
/ a1=2 .a/
dt
and therefore
Z a 1
t.a/ / a1=2 .a/
0
If / 1=a4 corresponding to radiation domination this gives a / t1=2 and H D 1=2t.

If / 1=a3 corresponding to matter domination, it gives a / t2=3 and H D 2=3t.
After the cosmological constant has become significant, we can ignore the radiation.
Keeping only the matter and cosmological contributions to , one finds the result
shown in Fig. A.3. The present Hubble time is 1:44 1010 years to be compared
with the age 1:38 1010 years.
Fig. A.3 The scale factor

with t in years. The sloped
dashed line is what the scale
factor would be, if aP had its
present value at all times. The
age of the Universe would
then be equal to the present
Hubble time 1=H0 which is
1:44 1010 years. This is
almost the same as actual age
t0 D 1:38 1010 years
The Friedmann equation also gives the timescale for the temperature during
radiation domination. Before electron-positron annihilation, the energy density is
given by Table A.2 with A D 3:54. Remembering that T is proportional to 1=a, one
finds with t in seconds and kT in MeV
1:39 1
tD p
A .kT/2
After electron-positron annihilation, the same expression holds with A D 1:11.
Distance to the Horizon
If we ignore the expansion of the Universe, the distance travelled by light in a

Hubble time is c=H, which is called the Hubble distance. Since the Hubble time
is about equal to the age of the Universe during the Big Bang, we may guess that
the distance to the horizon is about equal to the Hubble distance. As we now see,
that turns out to be correct.
To calculate the distance to the horizon, one uses comoving coordinates x
r=a.t/, instead of the physical coordinates r.4 At any epoch during the Big Bang, the
horizon is defined as the distance that a particle with speed c would have travelled
since the Big Bang began. Suppose that a photon arrives at the origin x D 0 at some
time t, and was at a very short distance a.t/dx a very short time dt earlier. Then
a.t/dx D cdt is a good approximation because a hardly changes during the time
dt. As there choice of origin is arbitrary, this relation is valid without qualification.
4
In this context, r can be taken to mean the three Cartesian coordinates .x; y; z/. Comoving means
moving with (pronounced cohmoving), the idea being that a point with fixed x is moving with
the expansion.
Chapter 11 Ripples in the Universe 93
Going to infinitesimals we get an exact result, and integrating gives

Z t Z a.t/
0 0
x.t/ D c dt =a.t / D c da=a2H.a/
tbb abb
Z 1=2
c a.t/
.a.t// da
D (A.1)
H.t/ abb .a/ a2
where bb denotes the start of the Big Bang and I have used / H 2 .
Let us first suppose that the Big Bang starts only at the beginning of the known
history. During radiation domination when is proportional to 1=a4 , we can to a
good approximation set abb to zero (except during the first few Hubble times) which
gives r.t/ D c=H.t/. During matter domination, we can in can ignore the radiation
dominated era (except during the first few Hubble times) which gives to a good
approximation which gives r.t/ D 2c=H.t/. At the present epoch we need to keep
both the cosmological constant and the matter, but we can still drop the radiation
and set abb to zero. This gives r0 D 3:17c=H0.
These results are practically unchanged if the Big Bang started earlier, because
during the Big Bang the Universe contains matter, radiation or a mixture of the
two. Therefore, the integral converges rapidly as we make the start of the Big Bang
earlier, giving indeed a negligible change to the result. Also, the result r D c=H
holds during any era of radiation domination and the result r D 2c=H holds during
any era of matter domination after a few Hubble times have elapsed. We see that in
all cases, the distance to the horizon is at least roughly equal to the Hubble distance.
This explains why the distance to the horizon represents an ever-decreasing
fraction of the distance to the edge of the observable Universe, as we go back in
time. The former is approximately proportional to 1H while the latter is proportional
to a. The former divided by the latter is proportional to 1=aH, which is in turn equal
to 1=Pa. But gravity is slowing down the expansion rate aP which means that indeed
1=aH decreases as we go back in time.
It also explains why the distance to the horizon represents an ever-decreasing
fraction of the smoothing radius, as was stated in Chap. 11. That is simply because
the smoothing radius is proportional to a.
Chapter 11 Ripples in the Universe
To describe the perturbations we identify each point in the actual (perturbed)

Universe with a point in the homogeneous (unperturbed) Universe. Then each
point in the actual Universe is assigned a coordinate x in the homogeneous
Universe. Since the homogeneous Universe can be obtained by smoothing on a scale
much bigger than the observable Universe, this justifies the identification of the
unperturbed energy density with the average energy density in the actual Universe.
Fourier Decomposition
It is useful to invoke the Fourier decomposition for each perturbation. At a given

time, a perturbation g.x/ is written as5
Z
g.x/ D d3 k g1 sin.k x/ C g2 cos.k x/ (A.2)
In this expression, x is the vector with components .x=a; y=a; z=a/. The magnitude
of k is denoted by k and is called the comoving wavenumber. If we take the vector
k to point along the x direction, k x D kx and the each term looks like a wave with
wavelength 2=k. In general though, we are not dealing with a wave because the
amplitudes g1 and g2 are not in general oscillating.
To a good approximation, the amplitudes g1 .k/ and g2 .k/ for a given k evolve
independently of each other, and independently of those quantities for different k.
To be precise, it we specify g1 .k/ and gP 1 .k/ at some time for every perturbation but
for a single k, that determines g1 .k/ for every perturbation at future times, for the
same k. The same is true for g2 .k/. This is called the linear approximation.
The mean-square g2 of a perturbation can be written
Z 1
g2 D Pg .k/dk=k
0
The contribution to g2 from comoving wavenumbers in an interval dk is Pg .k/dk=k,

and Pg .k/ is called the spectrum of g.
The comoving wavelength 2=k is equal to the physical wavelength 2a.t/=k at
the present epoch. I will call 1=k the scale of the Fourier component. In Chap. 11 I
defined a smoothed quantity. If the smoothing radius is denoted by a.t/R, smoothing
is about the same as dropping Fourier components with 1=k < R. Therefore, the
smoothing scale defined in Chap. 11 is about the same as the biggest surviving
scale of the Fourier component as defined here. We are interested only in the
cosmological smoothing scales, shown in Table A.1.
Curvature Perturbation
In the perturbed Universe, Euclids geometry is no longer valid which means that we
cant choose Cartesian coordinates x D .x; y; z/, such that the distance ds between
5
Because the perturbations dont go to zero at large distances, one actually has to write a
Fourier series within a box much bigger than the presently observable Universe, but Ill skip that
complication. Assuming statistical homogeneity, we can take the box size to infinity for the purpose
of evaluating the spectrum.
Table A.1 Cosmological scales The smoothing radius is proportional to a. The first column
shows its present value, called the smoothing scale. The second column shows the value of the scale
factor a when the smoothing radius becomes equal to the distance to the horizon. This happens
during matter domination for entries below the line, and during radiation domination for entries
above it. Last scattering occurs at the epoch a D 103 . The quantity ` refers to the CMB anisotropy
and is defined in this Appendix. The fourth column gives the mass of the object formed when a
region within the smoothing radius collapses, calculated in this Appendix
Smoothing a when smoothing Mass of
scale radius equals collapsed
(lightyears) horizon radius CMB ` object
3 103 3 109 103 M
3 104 3 108 106 M
3 105 3 107 109 M
3 106 3 106 1012 M
3 107 3 105 1400 1015 M
3 108 1 103 63
1:5 109 1 102 14
5 109 1 101 2
two points is given by ds2 D a2 .t/.dx2 C dy2 C dz2 /. It can be shown though, that
after smoothing with a smoothing radius much bigger than the horizon we can find
coordinates such that6
ds2 D a2 .x; y; z; t/.dx2 C dy2 C dz2 /
Also, we can choose the coordinates so that the energy density evaluated at fixed t is
homogeneous, and so that an observer with fixed .x; y; z/ moves with the expansion.
Then, we can write for the locally defined scale factor
a.x; t/ D a.t/e.x;t/
The quantity is called the curvature perturbation. It is defined only on scales

bigger than the horizon, but that includes all cosmological scales when the known
history begins. At that era (which I will call the initial era) we are supposing that
the adiabatic condition applies, according to which the pressure depends only on the
energy density. As I now show, that makes constant.
If we took the smoothing scale to be much bigger than the distance to the
present horizon, we would arrive at the practically homogeneous Universe that was
the subject of earlier chapters. But theres nothing special about the presentthe
Universe doesnt know were here! If we go back to an earlier epoch, the smoothing
6
To be precise, that is possible if we ignore the gravitational radiation, which at some level is
generated by inflation. That can be included by inserting an extra factor, which distorts the shape
of an expanding region while leaving its volume unchanged.
radius can be bigger than the distance to the horizon even if it is not so at present.7
Then, the Universe at each location looks like some homogeneous Universe. An
observer at that epoch could discover that it was actually inhomogeneous, only
by moving more than a Hubble distance from their current location. As a result,
the smoothed energy density evolves at each location, just as it would in some
homogeneous Universe. In effect, the whole Universe becomes a collection of
separate homogeneous Universes.
I will choose the spatial average of to be zero, which is always possible because
a spatially homogeneous could be regarded as belonging to a.t/. According to
the adiabatic condition, the pressure p depends only on the total energy density .
Therefore, since is homogeneous at fixed t, so is p. Using the relation dE D pdV
and E / a3 , we have V P D V.P C p/ which is equivalent to

aP .t/ P
.t/
P D 3 C .x; t/ ..t/ C p.t//
a.t/
This makes the rate of change of independent of position, which means that it
actually vanishes because the spatial average of is zero.
The spectrum of is determined by requiring that the spectrum of the CMB
anisotropy agrees with observation.8 The spectrum is almost independent of k, and
observation is consistent with the form
P .k/ D A.k=k /n1
with k1 D 6:5 107 lightyears, A1=2 D 6:9 105 and n 1 D 0:04. The number
n is called the spectral index.
One generally assumes that there is no correlation between the amplitudes of
different Fourier components of . In other words, that a measurement of one
amplitude tells us nothing about the probable outcome of a measurement of a
different amplitude. This property is called Gaussianity and it is consistent with
present observation.
The Density Contrasts
Now let us see how is related to the density contrasts. To do that, we use the
approximation e D 1 C , which implies that a.x; t/ D a.t/.1 C /. With that
approximation, D a=a.
7
That is possible, because the scale factor decreases more slowly than the distance to the horizon
as we go back in time as we saw at the end of Chap. 10.
8
The galaxy distribution is also used, but the CMB alone gives almost the same result.
Let us denote the energy density of a matter component (CDM or ordinary

matter) by m . According to the adiabatic condition it is homogeneous at fixed t,
because is. We can choose a new time coordinate though, t0 .x; y; z; t/, and then
the energy density will not be homogeneous. So that we deal with perturbations, we
assume that t0 is almost the same as t so that
t0 .x; y; z; t/ D t C t.x; y; z; t/
The change in time coordinate will change the locally defined scale factor by some
amount a. Using m / a3 for the matter density contrast this gives
m dm =da a
D a D 3 D 3
m m a
For a radiation component, the energy density is proportional to a4 and the density
contrast is 4. These results hold for each Fourier component, well before the
wavelength enters the horizon.
Acoustic Oscillation
The acoustic oscillation is an oscillation in the amplitude of each Fourier com-

ponent.The amplitude of the acoustic oscillation decreases with time, because the
photons diffuse out of regions of high density into regions of lower density. The
decrease is called Silk damping after Joseph Silk who first pointed to its existence.
The frequency of the acoustic oscillation is approximately equal to c divided by its
wavelength. The acoustic oscillation ends at the epoch of last scattering.
The spectrum of the photon density contrast at the epoch of last scattering is
shown in Fig. A.4. It exhibits a series of peaks and troughs, caused by the acoustic
oscillation. For the wavelength corresponding to the first trough, there has been time
for one quarter of an oscillation; for the wavelength corresponding to the first peak
there has been time for half an oscillation, and so on.
The CMB Anisotropy
According to the linear approximation, which is more than enough to handle current
observation, the CMB anisotropy corresponds simply to a shift in the temperature of
the blackbody radiation. I will denote the shift by T, and the average temperature
over the sky by T. According to observation, T D 2:73 K.
To extract most of the information from the CMB anisotropy, it is enough to
focus on a small patch of sky. Within such a patch, we can define (almost) Cartesian
coordinates, corresponding to a grid of straight lines which is (almost) rectangu-
Fig. A.4 Spectrum of the photon density contrast This plot is an approximate representation
of the spectrum of the photon density contrast at the epoch of last scattering. (The spectrum of the
ordinary matter density contrast has the same shape but is a factor .3=4/2 smaller.) The number
k specifies the wavelength, as in Table A.1. The horizontal axis is k=als Hls , where als is a at last
scattering and similarly for Hls . For k=als Hls much less than 1, the wavelength at last scattering
is much bigger than the Hubble distance. Then, by virtue of the adiabatic condition, the spectrum
is approximately 1=16 times the spectrum of . The troughs and peaks are caused by the acoustic
oscillation. The decrease in the height of the peaks is caused by Silk damping
lar.9 Then I can define Fourier components of the anisotropy. The wavenumber of
a Fourier component, measured in radians, is denoted by `. The spectrum of the
CMB anisotropy is shown in Fig. A.5, it exhibits a series of peaks, with decreasing
amplitude. Since the CMB is a (distorted) snapshot of the photon density contrast at
last scattering, one might hope that the peaks in Fig. A.5 are related to the peaks in
Fig. A.4. There is indeed a relation, but its not very close and I wont go into it.
To describe the
PCMB anisotropy precisely, one must use the spherical harmonics
to write T D a`m Y`m .e/ where e is the direction in the sky. The spectrum of
the CMB is then defined as the average of .a`m /2 over m at fixed `. For ` 1 this
becomes the same as the spectrum defined earlier.
To have a prediction that is exact within the linear approximation, one must do
two things. First, one must take account of the motion of photon gas at the epoch
of last scattering, and also the effect on the CMB temperature of the variations in
mass density that are encountered on its journey towards us. Second, the implicit
assumption that last-scattering takes place instantly must be abandoned. Instead of
assuming that all of the CMB photons come from a single sphere around us, one
must accept that some of them were emitted earlier than others.
The line in Fig. A.5 is the calculated spectrum, using the cosmological parame-
ters shown in Table A.8. The data points are observed values, which except for for
very low ` have been averaged over a range of ` (binned). The prediction shown is
averaged over the position of the observer. One can also calculate the mean-square
9
I define a straight line in the sky as one which doesnt change direction. It is the equivalent in
the sky, of a Great Circle on the Earth which represents the shortest distance travelled on Earth
between adjacent points.
Chapter 12 Formation of Galaxies and Clusters 99
Fig. A.5 The spectrum of the CMB anisotropy The vertical axis is the spectrum of T, in units
of .106 K/2 . The lower horizontal axis gives the ` defined in the text. The upper horizontal axis
gives the corresponding angle in the sky (Image: ESA [www.esa.int])
variation with position, which is called cosmic variance. This is included in the error
bars, and dominates them at low `.
Chapter 12 Formation of Galaxies and Clusters
Estimating the Mass
Let us see why the over- and under-dense regions of the CDM are roughly as
big as the smoothing scale. The smoothed density contrast includes only Fourier
components whose wavelength is bigger than the smoothing radius. Of these, the
dominant ones have wavelength not much bigger than the smoothing radius, because
they have spend the most time with wavelength less than the Hubble distance,
allowing them to grow the most. Therefore, the dominant wavelengths of the
smoothed density contrast are about equal to the smoothing radius which means
that indeed the over- and under-dense regions are typically of that size.
Now let us see how to estimate the mass M of a galaxy or galaxy cluster, that
results from the collapse of an over-dense region of the density contrast smoothed on
a scale R. A region collapses if the smoothed density contrast becomes roughly equal
to 1. Before that, the region is expanding with the Universe and its matter density
is almost the same as the unperturbed matter density m . The size of the region is
typically about the same as the smoothing radius aR. This gives the estimate
4 3 3
MD R a m
3
Since m is proportional to a3 , the quantity a3 m is independent of a and is equal to

the present average matter density of the Universe. That is known from observation
as shown in Table 8.1. Taking the unit of R to be the lightyear, and the unit of mass
to be the Suns mass, one finds M D 6 108 R3 .
Neutrino Density Contrast
In this chapter I have been ignoring the neutrino density contrast, but its easily dealt
with. When the wavelength of a Fourier component becomes less than the Hubble
distance, the neutrino density contrast decreases. That is because the neutrinos are
moving freely with speed c, which causes a net flow of neutrinos out of regions with
positive density contrast (where there is an excess of neutrinos) into regions with
negative density contrast (where there are fewer neutrinos). That could not have
happened earlier, because the Hubble distance at any epoch is about the same as the
horizon, and the horizon is defined as the biggest distance that a photon could have
travelled since the beginning of the Big Bang. The decrease in the neutrino density
contrast must be included in the exact calculation of the CMB anisotropy.
Chapter 13 The Higgs Field
Planck Scale
In the text, I noticed that a measurement of the Higgs field strength will not yield
precisely the vacuum value. Similarly, if we measure the average energy of the
Higgs field within some region, we wont get precisely zero. The typical energy that
we get, increases as the size of the region is decreased. If we make the region small
enough, the typical value becomes big enough to make the region a p black hole. The
size needed for that to happen is approximately equal to the distance G=c3 which
is 1:62 1035 metres. Thats called the Planck length and its the only combination
of the fundamental constants that corresponds to a distance. According to quantum
field theory then, it makes no sense to talk about the energy within a region that is
smaller than the Planck length. This places two important restrictions on the validity
of quantum field theory.
The first restriction concerns the collision of two particles. According to quantum
field theory, the typical distance probed by a collision becomes smaller as the energy
is increased. That distance becomes the Planck length when the energy is about
Chapter 14 Inflation 101
p
c5 =8G, which is 2:43 1021 MeV. Thats called the Planck energy and its
the only combination of the fundamental constants that corresponds to an energy.10
Quantum field theory cannot describe the collision of particles with much bigger
energy, which is a pity because some cosmic ray particles do have much bigger
energy and they do occasionally collide. Nobody knows what happens when such a
collision occurs. (The energies of the collisions at LHC are only about 106 MeV by
the way and it would be completely impossible to build a collider with the Planck
energy.)
The second restriction concerns the phenomenon of black hole evaporation.
Assuming that the size of the a black hole is much bigger than the Planck length,
one can use quantum field theory to demonstrate that the black hole would evaporate
by emitting particles.11 The evaporation rate is far too small to be of interest for
known black holes. But tiny black holes might be formed in the early Universe,
whose evaporation might be observable. As the evaporation proceeds, the black hole
becomes smaller and eventually it becomes as small as the Planck length. Then the
quantum field theory calculation no longer applies, and nobody knows what happens
next. Some people thing that it will continue to evaporate till theres nothing left and
others thing that it will stop evaporating, but nobody knows.
In this account of the vacuum fluctuation, I focussed on the average Higgs field
within a given region. Instead, one can focus on the Fourier components of the Higgs
field. If the amplitude of a Fourier component is re-measured after a time much less
than the wavelength divided by c we will find almost the same result. If instead we
re-measure it after a longer time, we get a new result which is unpredictable.12
Chapter 14 Inflation
As was noted in the text, the lack of observed gravitational radiation means that
the energy density during the second stage of inflation cannot be more than about
1064 times as big as at the beginning of the known history. Using the Friedman
equation, this means that the Hubble parameter H cannot exceed 1036 seconds1 .
The corresponding evolution of the Hubble parameter and the expansion rate are
shown in Fig. A.6. Going the other way, the Hubble parameter during inflation must
be bigger than the one at the beginning of the known history, corresponding to
Fig. A.7.
To describe inflation in detail it is convenient to use what are called Natural
Units. The energy unit is the MeV, and the units of time and length are chosen
to make and c equal to 1. The relation E D hf determines the time unit to be
10
The factor 8 is inserted according to a common though not universal convention.
11
This was done in 1974 by Steven Hawking, building on previous work.
12
This statement ignores the mass of the Higgs boson. It true to good accuracy if the wavelength
divided by c is much less than the period of the homogeneous oscillation of the Higgs field.
Fig. A.6 The earliest aH

possible inflation era. The
first plot shows the expansion 106
rate aH for that case, while
the second plot shows the 1
Hubble parameter H, with the
second as the unit of time. An 10 6
earlier era would make H
even bigger, generating 12
10
gravitational waves at a level
that would already have been 10
18
observed
50 40 30 20 10
a
10 10 10 10 10 1
H
1036
1027
1018
109
10 9
a
10 50 10 40 10 30 10 20 10 10 1
6:583 1022 seconds, and the requirement c D 1 fixes the unit of length to be
1:973 1013 metres. I will denote the Planck energy by MP . With the choice of
Natural Units, the Planck energy is also called the Planck scale because it determines
the Planck distance. During inflation, aR > 0 which is equivalent to jHj P < H 2 . To
generate scalar field perturbations with the required nearly flat spectrum, we need
P H 2 during the second era of inflation. The constant K in the Friedmann
jHj
equation is then negligible so that 3MP2 H 2 D . In the expanding Universe a scalar
field
with potential V.
/ evolves according to the equation
R D 3H
P C V 0 .
/.
To produce the required perturbations, we require the terms on the right hand side
to be almost equal and opposite. Consistency with jHj P H 2 then requires 1
2 0 2
where D MP .V =V/ =2. The first derivative of that condition requires jj 1
where D MP2 V 00 =V. This setup is called slow roll. When it fails to apply, inflation
ends and the inflaton potential oscillates around its vacuum value. In Fig. 14.1, the
vacuum value is much smaller than the Planck scale, and inflation is ended by the
failure of the condition on V 00 .
Chapter 15 Generating the Perturbations 103
Fig. A.7 The latest possible aH

inflation era is the one that
would end just before the 10 10
beginning of the known
history of the Universe began
10 12
10 14
16
10
10 18
a
10 18 10 14 10 10 10 6 0.01
H
100
0.01
10 6
10 10
10 14
a
10 18 10 14 10 10 10 6 0.01
Chapter 15 Generating the Perturbations
Generating from the Inflaton Field Perturbation
Chapter 15 describes the generation of the perturbations using a smoothed quanti-

ties. To have a more precise discussion, we need instead to use Fourier components,
with each wavelength proportional to a. A Fourier component of the inflaton field
perturbation stops fluctuating when its comoving wavenumber k is equal to aH. This
generates a curvature perturbation , given by
1
H
D D
a d
=da
P
If the inflaton field is the only one with a perturbation, its value at a given location
determines the future evolution of both the energy density and the pressure. Then
the pressure depends only on the energy density, and is constant so that it is equal
to the quantity existing at the beginning of the known history.
One can show that just after the inflaton field stops fluctuating, its spectrum
P the spectrum P of is
is equal to .H=2/2 .13 Using the slow-roll result for
,
therefore
2
H 9H 4
P .k/ D
2 V 02
where the right hand side is evaluated when aH D k. Using again the slow-roll
results, we can then calculate a quantity called the spectral index, which is denoted
by n;
1 dP .k/
n.k/ 1 D 2 6
P .k/ dk
The first expression is the definition of n.k/. In the second expression and are
evaluated at the epoch when aH D k, and the expression is obtained using the
slow-roll results. For a typical potential, n.k/ doesnt vary much over cosmological
scales, and taking it to be a constant it becomes the spectral index defined earlier.
The form of the inflaton potential is restricted by requiring that the predicted P .k/
agrees with observation.
The correlation of the Fourier components of in this scenario is almost
certainly too small ever to observe. This is unfortunate, because the correlation has
a distinctive form which is independent of the potential. If observed, it would have
confirmed the inflaton scenario beyond all reasonable doubt.
Generating from the Perturbation of a Different Field
If is generated from the perturbation of some other field, one obtains quite different
results. Regarding the spectrum, observation constrains both the inflaton potential
and the potential of the other field. In particular, n.k/ 1 now becomes equal to
2Q 6, where Q is defined in the same way as , but using the potential of the other
field.
Regarding the correlation between Fourier components, is typically of the form
3
D g C fNL g2
5
where g has uncorrelated Fourier components.14 At present observation tells us

only that fNL is less than about 10 in magnitude. Future observation though, will
13
I am using Natural Units.
14
The factor 3/5 is inserted for a historical reason.
Chapter 15 Generating the Perturbations 105
detect fNL if it is bigger than about 1 in magnitude. That is quite interesting, because
the simplest version of what is called the curvaton scenario predicts fNL D 5=4
which is probably big enough to eventually detect.
Table A.2 The radiation before electron-positron annihilation. All species are in thermal equilib-
rium at the same temperature T. The energy densities are in units of .kT/4 =.c/3 and the number
densities are in units of .kT/3 =.c/3 . (The numbers in the third column are the totals adding all
three species.) The average particle energies are in units of kT
Electrons and Neutrinos and
Photons positrons anti-neutrinos
Energy density 0:658 1:152 1:728
Number density 0:244 0:366 0:549
Particle energy 2:70 3:15 3:15
Table A.3 The radiation after electron-positron annihilation. The units are the same as in Fig. A.2,
with T the photon temperature. At present, T D 2:73 K which corresponds to kT D 2:36
1010 MeV
Neutrinos and
Photons anti-neutrinos
Energy density 0:658 0:450
Number density 0:244 0:200
Particle energy 2:70 2:26
Appendix B
Tables
Table A.4 The elementary particles The particles in the first table are called bosons, those in
the second quarks and those in the third leptons. The rest energies are in MeV. The mass of a
particle in kilograms is equal to 1:79 1030 times its rest energy in MeV. The photon and gluon
always move with speed c and are said to have zero mass. Most species come with an antiparticle.
The antiparticle has the same rest energy as the particle. The 1 , 2 and 3 are known collectively
as neutrinos. The neutrino rest energies are known to be very small. Most probably, two of them
have the values indicated and the third has a much smaller value. In any case, the spectrum of the
CMB anisotropy require the sum of the masses to be less than 106 MeV
Particle (photon) Gluon Z WC Higgs boson
Antiparticle W
Rest energy 91;190 80;420 125;000
Particle u d c s t b
Antiparticle u d c s t b
Rest energy 2:5 5:0 1270 95 173;000 4240
Particle e (electron) (muon) 1 2 3

Antiparticle eN (positron) 1 2 3
Rest energy 0:511 106 1780 5 108 9 109 ?
Table A.5 The rest energies Neutron Proton Electron

of atomic particles in MeV
939:6 938:3 0:511

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-22744-3
108 B Tables
Table A.6 The amount of Electric Baryon Lepton

each conserved quantity
charge number number
carried by the elementary
particles. Each anti-particle u, c & t quarks 2=3 1=3 0
carries the opposite amount. d, s & b quarks 1=3 1=3 0
The electric charges are in Leptons 1 0 1
units of the proton charge. I Photon 0 0 0
am ignoring another
conserved quantity called Higgs boson 0 0 0
colour (carried only by Gluon 0 0 0
quarks and gluons) because Z 0 0 0
its density is everywhere zero WC 1 0 0
Table A.7 Fundamental G c

constants in MKS units
6:674 1011 3:000 108 1:055 1034
Table A.8 Fundamental cosmological parameters To calculate the known history of the
Universe one needs (in addition to the fundamental constants and the relevant Standard Model
parameters) six cosmological parameters. The first five are needed to describe the homogeneous
Universe. These refer to the present Universe. The first is the Hubble time. The second is the
temperature of the CMB, and third and fourth are the fractions of the present energy density
provided by the CDM and the ordinary matter. The fifth is the constant K appearing in the
Friedmann equation, which is zero or too small to measure. The other two parameters are needed to
specify the spectrum of the primordial density contrast, as described in this Appendix. The values
of the parameters are chosen so that calculations of the CMB anisotropy and the galaxy distribution
agree with observation (the CMB anisotropy alone gives almost the same result, with almost the
same accuracy). With that choice, everything else is in adequate agreement with observation, such
as the abundance of light elements and the properties of galaxies and galaxy clusters
CMB CDM OM
1=H0 temperature fraction fraction K A n1
1:44 1010 2:7250 K 0:26 0:048 0 .6:9 105 /2 0:04
Table A.9 Derived cosmological parameters These can be derived from the fundamental
cosmological parameters. The subscript eq denotes the epoch when the matter and radiation have
equal energy density and ls denotes the epoch of last scattering. Baryon number is the number of
protons plus the number of neutrons
Age of Distance to Baryon number
Universe present horizon aeq als per photon
1 1
1:38 1010 years 4:56 1010 lightyears 3400 1100
6:1 1010
B Tables 109
Fig. A.8 The Greek letters

(Source [www.preceptaustin.
org])
Glossary
The meaning of each term is summarised, with more detail in the indicated chapters.
If a term is used only at the point where it is explained, it is not listed.
Abolishing gravity (Chap. 7) Working in a small free-falling region for short
time.
Acceleration of gravity (Appendix A) Gravity gives the same acceleration to
every object, no matter what is its mass.
Accelerator (Chap. 2) A machine creating one or two beams of particles with
very high energy, which collide with a stationary target or with each other.
Acoustic oscillation (Chap. 11) The rapid fluctuation the density contrast of the
baryon-photon fluid, that exists before the epoch of last-scattering.
Amplitude (Chap. 4) The maximum variation of a quantity which is oscillating.
Antiparticle (Appendix B) The partner of a particle, which has the same mass
but the opposite value for each conserved quantity.
Atom (Chap. 4) An object consisting of a nucleus and one or more electrons.
Baryon number (Chap. 6 and Appendix B) One of the conserved quantities.
Baryons (Chaps. 6 and Appendix B) Particles that carry baryon number.
Baryon-photon fluid (Chap. 11) The nuclei, electrons and photons before the
epoch of last scattering.
Beryllium (Chap. 7) The atom whose nucleus has four protons.
Binding energy (Chap. 6) The energy required to break apart a nucleus, atom or
molecule.
Big Bang (Chap. 1) The era during which the Universe consists of particles.
Black hole (Chap. 5) An object whose gravity is so strong that nothing can
emerge from it.
Boltzmann constant (Chap. 9) The physical properties of something with
temperature T depend on kT where k is the Boltzmann constant.
CDM (Chap. 1) Cold Dark Matter
CDM halo (Chap. 12) An object formed when an over-dense region attracts
more CDM and collapses under its own weight.

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-22744-3
112 Glossary
Charge (Chap. 4) Charge is carried by an object that generates an electric field

when stationary, as shown in Fig. 4.4. Its magnitude determines the strength of
the field and its sign determines the fields direction. The electron and proton
carry opposite amounts of charge.
Classical electrodynamics (Chap. 3) Describes charged objects and electric and
magnetic fields, ignoring quantum effects.
Classical physics (Chap. 3) Physics ignoring quantum effects.
CMB (Chaps. 1, 5 and 11) Cosmic Microwave Background
Cold Dark Matter (Chap. 1) Matter in the Universe which is invisible because
it neither absorbs nor emits known particles.
Collision (Chap. 6) The close encounter or actual contact, of two particles that
are moving towards each other.
Collision process (Chap. 6) A collision that produces one or more new particles.
Conserved quantity (Chap. 6) A quantity whose total amount cannot be
changed.
Constant Not changing with time (adjective). A quantity that doesnt change
with time (noun).
Cosmic Gas (Chap. 5) The gas between galaxy clusters, which was all there was
before galaxy formation.
Cosmic Microwave Background (Chaps. 1, 5 and 11) The electromagnetic
radiation made of the photons that existed just after the epoch of last scattering.
Cosmic Neutrino Background (Chaps. 1, 5 and 9) The neutrinos that existed
just after neutrino interactions cease.
Cosmological Constant (Chaps. 5 and 8) The energy density of the vacuum,
which is constant.
Cosmological scales (Chaps. 11 and Appendix A) The scales of cosmological
interest.
Curvaton scenario (Appendix A) The scenario which generates from the
curvaton field.
Curvaton field (Chap. 15) A hypothetical field whose perturbation generates .
Curvature perturbation (Appendix A) The initial perturbation , which deter-
mines future perturbations.
Dark energy (Chap. 14) Energy in the present Universe, that does not come from
particles.
Decay (Chap. 6) The disappearance of a particle, creating other particles.
Density (Chap. 9) Amount of a quantity per unit volume. (Mass density if the
quantity is not specified.)
Density contrast (Chap. 11) The perturbation in the energy density, divided by
the average energy density.
Distribution functions of a gas (Appendix A) Specify the contribution to the
energy density of each constituent, from particles with energy in a given range.
Early Universe (Chap. 7) The Universe before galaxy formation.
Electric field (Chap. 4) The field generated by a stationary charged object.
Electromagnetic field (Chap. 4) The collective name for electric and magnetic
fields.
Glossary 113
Electromagnetic wave (Chap. 4) A wave consisting of rapidly varying electric

and magnetic fields.
Electron (Chap. 4) One of the elementary particles.
Electron-positron annihilation (Chap. 6) The collision of an electron with a
positron causing both to disappear.
Electron-positron annihilation (epoch of) (Chap. 7) The epoch when each
positron in the Universe annihilates with some electron.
Elementary particle (Chap. 3) A particle that is not known to consist of other
particles.
Energy density (Chap. 8) Energy per unit volume.
Expansion rate (Chap. 10) The rate at which the scale factor increases, denoted
by aP .
Extension of the Standard Model (Chap. 3) A theory like the Standard Model
but with more particles.
Field (Chap. 3) A fundamental quantity occupying a whole region of space, as
opposed to a particle.
Field (scalar) (Chap. 13) A field that is specified just by its strength.
First stage (Chap. 7) Beginning of the known history, when everything except
CDM is in thermal equilibrium.
Fourier expansion (Appendix A) Defined by Eq. (A.2) of Appendix A.
Fundamental constants (Chap. 3) The numbers G, c and h.
Free-falling (Chap. 7) Subject only to the force of gravity.
Frequency of an oscillation (Chap. 4) Is 1 divided by its period.
Galaxy (Chap. 5) An astronomical object held together by gravity, consisting of
stars and gas.
Galaxy cluster (Chap. 5) An astronomical object held together by gravity,
consisting of galaxies and gas.
General Relativity (Chap. 3) Einsteins theory of gravity.
Gravitational field (Appendix A) The field which specifies the strength of
gravity.
Gravitational radiation (Chap. 5) An oscillating gravitational field.
Hadron (Chap. 3) A particle made out of quarks.
Helium (Chap. 4) The atom whose nucleus contains two protons.
Higgs boson (Chap. 13) An elementary particle of the Standard Model.
Higgs field (Chap. 13) The field whose oscillation would correspond to the
presence of Higgs bosons.
Homogeneous The same everywhere
Homogeneous Universe (Chap. 5) The Universe, considered under the pretence
that it is homogeneous.
Horizon (Chaps. 1 and 10) Boundary of the biggest region that could be observed
in principle.
Hot Big Bang (Chap. 16) The Big Bang between the onset of thermal equilib-
rium and last scattering.
Hubble distance (Appendix A) Defined as ca=Pa.
Hubble parameter (Appendix A) Defined as aP =a, denoted by H.
114 Glossary
Hubble time (Appendix A) Defined as a=Pa.

Hydrogen (Chaps. 4 and 7) The atom whose nucleus has one proton.
Inflation (Chaps. 1 and 14) The hypothetical early era of expansion with
repulsive gravity.
Inflaton (Chap. 14) The particle corresponding to the inflaton field.
Inflaton field (Chap. 14) The scalar field responsible for inflation.
Initial state (Chaps. 9 and 11) The state of the Universe at the beginning of the
known history.
Interactions (Chap. 3) The collisions and decays of particles.
Isotopes (Chap. 4) Atoms whose nuclei have the same number of protons but
different numbers of neutrons.
Isotropic The same in all directions.
Kinetic energy (Chap. 6) The difference between the energy of a particle, and
its rest energy.
Known history (Chap. 7) The history after the first hundredth of a second.
Last scattering (epoch of) (Chap. 7) The epoch after which photons cease to
bounce off electrons.
Lepton number (Chap. 9 and Appendix B) One of the conserved quantities.
Leptons (Appendix B) Particles that carry lepton number.
Lightyear The distance travelled by light in one year, 9:46 1012 km.
Lithium (Chaps. 4 and 7) The atom whose nucleus has three protons.
Magnetic field (Chap. 4) The field that is detected by a compass needle.
Magnitude (Chap. 2) A number ignoring its sign.
Matter (Chap. 8) Particles in the Universe moving with speed much less than c.
Matter-dominated Universe (Chap. 8) The Universe while most of its energy
density comes from matter.
Mean-square (Chap. 11) The average of the square of a quantity.
MeV (Chap. 6) The energy unit used in this book.
MKS units (Chap. 3) The system of units employing the metre, kilogram and
second.
Natural Units (Appendix B) The system of units in which D c D 1.
Neutral (Chap. 4) Carrying zero charge.
neutrino (Chaps. 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 11) Three elementary particle species have
this name.
Nucleus (Chap. 4) The object at the centre of an atom, consisting of protons and
neutrons.
Number density of a thing (Chap. 9) The number of the thing per unit volume.
Observable Universe (Chaps. 1 and 10) The Universe within a horizon-sized
sphere around us.
Ordinary hydrogen (Chap. 4) The atom whose nucleus is a single proton.
Ordinary matter Consists of protons, neutrons and electrons.
Oscillating Undergoing an oscillation.
Oscillation of a quantity A periodic switch back and forth, described by the
Sine function.
Glossary 115
Parameters of the Standard Model (Chap. 3) Numbers that specify the Stan-
dard Model, in addition to the relevant fundamental constants.
Parameters (cosmological) (Chaps. 10 and 11) Numbers that define the evo-
lution of the known Universe, in addition to the fundamental constants and the
relevant Standard Model parameters.
Particle (Chap. 3) A tiny object, of which many identical examples exist. The
examples are called collectively a particle species.
Peculiar velocity (Chap. 7) The velocity with which an object is moving through
the Cosmic Microwave Background.
Period of an oscillation (Chap. 4) The time interval between the maximum
values of a quantity that is oscillating.
Perturbation (Chap. 11) The small variation of a quantity with position, that
exists in the early Universe.
Potential of a scalar field (Chap. 13) The energy density that the field would
have, if its strength were homogeneous and constant.
Photon (Chap. 4) The elementary particle associated with an electromagnetic
wave. Each electromagnetic wave p can be regarded as a beam of photons.
Planck length (Appendix A) pG=c3 D 1:62 1035 metres.
Planck energy (Appendix A) c5 =8G D 2:43 1021 MeV.
Planck scale (Appendix A) When Natural Units are employed, the Planck
energy and the Planck length.
Positron (Chap. 7) The anti-electron.
Primordial energy density perturbation (Chap. 11) The smoothed energy den-
sity perturbation, that exists on cosmological scales at the beginning of the known
history.
Principe of Relativity (Appendix A) The statement that the laws of physics are
the same for every observer who is not accelerating.
Proportional to (Chap. 2) Two things are proportional to each other if doubling
one doubles the other, tripling one triples the other and so on.
Quantum effects (Chap. 3) Physical phenomena that depend on the value of
Plancks constant.
Quantum physics (Chap. 3) Physics that includes quantum effects.
Radiation (Chap. 8) Particles in the Universe moving with speed at or close to
c.
Radiation-dominated Universe (Chap. 8) The Universe while most of the
energy density comes from radiation.
Rest energy (Chap. 6) The energy of a stationary object.
Scale factor (Chap. 7) The distance between any two parts of the Universe,
divided by its present value. Denoted by a.
Scale (of smoothing) (Chap. 11) Present value of the smoothing radius.
Scale (of a Fourier component) (Appendix A) Present value of the inverse
wavenumber of a Fourier component.
Scattering (Chap. 6) The bouncing of particles off each other, which prevents
them from travelling in straight lines.
116 Glossary
Smoothing (Chap. 11) Replacing the energy density at each point, by its average
within a sphere.
Smoothing radius (Chap. 11) The radius of the sphere used when smoothing.
Special Relativity (Chap. 3) The description of space and time provided by
Einstein, which ignores gravity.
Square of a number The number times itself.
Standard Model (Chap. 3) The currently accepted theory of particles and their
interactions.
stretched scale A scale in a graph, for which equal spacing corresponds to equal
multiples.
Thermal equilibrium of a gas (Chap. 9) The state of a gas which is brought
about by frequent collision processes.
Vacuum value of a field (Chap. 13) The value of a scalar field in the vacuum,
ignoring quantum effects.
Vacuum fluctuation (Chap. 13) The departure of a field from its vacuum value,
due to quantum effects.
Symbols
a (Chap. 7) The scale factor of the Universe.

aP (Chap. 10) The rate of change of a.
Be (Chap. 4) Beryllium
c (Chap. 3) The speed of light, 3:00 105 kilometres per second.
G (Chap. 3) Newton gravitational constant,
h (Chap. 3) Planck constant
h=2.
H (Chap. 4) Hydrogen.
H (Appendix A) Hubble parameter aP =a.
He (Chap. 4) Helium
2
H (Chap. 4) Isotope of hydrogen whose nuclei contains two particles. (Notation
used for any number and any atom.)
Li (Chap. 4) Lithium
k (Chap. 9) The Boltzman constant, 2:71011 K. (In Appendix A, k is the present
wavenumber of a Fourier component.)
t Time. During the Big Bang, t D 0 is its beginning.
T (Chap. 9) Temperature.
Index
Abolishing gravity, 38 Carbon, 18

Absolute zero temperature, 50 CDM. See Cold Dark Matter (CDM)
Acceleration of gravity, 87 CDM halo, 64
Accelerator, 13 Charge, 18, 34
Accuracy, 9 Chirp, 30
Acoustic oscillation, 60 Classical Electrodynamics, 13
Figure, 61 need for Special Relativity, 88
Active galactic nucleus, 27 Classical physics, 13
Adiabatic condition, 58, 96 CMB. See Cosmic Microwave Background
Age of universe, 40 (CMB)
Anisotropic (CMB), 2 CMB anisotropy, 29, 60, 108
Anthropic principle, 47 Cold Dark Matter (CDM), 2, 27, 40,
Anti-neutrino, 33, 35, 40 51
Antiparticle, 107 Collapse, 1
Astronomical objects, 20 of a star, 25
Astrophysics, 2 Collision, 12, 31
Atom, 13, 17, 33 Collision process, 33, 40
Atom formation, 41 Colour
Attractive force, 18 conserved quantity, 108
Average particle energy, 89 of light, 21
Composite particle, 11
Conservation
Baryon number, 34 of baryon number, 34
per photon, 91 of charge, 34
Baryon-photon fluid, 60 of energy, 31
Beryllium, 17, 26 of lepton number, 34
Big Bang, 3 Conserved, 31
Big Bang Nucleosynthesis, 40 Constant, 12
Binaries, 30 Coordinates
Binary, 26 Cartesian, 92
Binding energy, 32 comoving, 92
Blackbody distribution, 90 Correlation
Black hole, 26, 27, 30 of Fourier components, 104
evaporation, 101 Cosmic gas, 27, 29, 38
Boltzman constant, 51 homogeneous, 2

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-22744-3
118 Index
Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), 2, 29, Field, 12

37, 41 First stage, 40, 50, 105
Cosmic Neutrino Background, 29, 41 Food calory, 36
Cosmic rays, 28 Force of gravity, 20
Cosmic strings, 84 Fourier decomposition of perturbations, 94
Cosmological Constant, 2, 45, 46 Free-falling, 39
Cosmological parameters, 108 Frequency
Cosmological scales, 58 of electromagnetic radiation, 21
table, 95 Friedmann equation, 72, 91
Critical value Fundamental constant, 12
of the energy density, 53
Curvature perturbation , 95
constancy of, 96 Galaxy, 1, 26, 27, 37, 46
generation of, 75 cluster, 27
distribution, 108
formation, 1, 2, 40, 42, 64, 99
Dark energy, 45, 74 Milky Way, 26
Decay, 12, 31 surveys, 4
of a proton, 35 uniform distribution, 2
Decay processes, 35 Gamma ray burst, 26
Decay products, 35 Gauge bosons, 12
Density, 41 General Relativity, 11, 13, 55
Density contrast, 57 Gravitational radiation, 2830
of CDM, 63 Gravitational radiation background, 30, 72
Distribution function, 89 Gravity, 13
DNA, 18
Hadrons, 12
Early universe, 38 Half-life, 35
Electric current, 11 Heat flow, 89
Electric field, 13, 21 Helium, 17, 26, 33, 41
of a charged object, 21 Higgs boson, 12, 67
Electric force, 18, 21 Higgs field, 67
Electromagnetic field, 21 Higgs potential, 68
Electromagnetic radiation, 2, 13, 21, 22, 26, Homogeneous universe, 27
27 Horizon, 3
Electron, 11, 17, 33, 35, 40 distance to, 93
Electron degeneracy, 25 present horizon, 3
Electron-positron annihilation, 33, 41 Hot Big Bang
Electron-volt (eV), 23, 36 beginning of, 79
Element, 17 Hubble time, 75
Elementary particle, 11 Hydrogen, 17, 26, 33, 41
Energy, 31
kinetic, 32
of a photon, 22 Inflation, 3
Energy density, 40, 45, 46, 48 end of, 71
perturbation, 57 Inflaton, 71
generation of, 71 Inflaton field, 71
of radiation, 89 Initial state, 49, 58
Euclidean geometry, 54, 72 Interaction, 12
EV. See Electron-volt (eV) Isotope, 17
Expansion, 1, 41 Isotropic
Expansion rate, 54, 71 CMB, 2
Extension of the Standard Model, 12, 69 expansion, 37
Index 119
Joule, 36 Nuclei, 25
creation in supernovas, 26
Nucleus, 17, 18, 33
Kilogram, 14 Number density, 89
Kilowatt hour, 36
Kinetic energy, 32
Known history, 1, 37, 40 Observable universe, 3
Observation, 28
Ordinary matter, 2
Last scattering, 41 Organic molecule, 18
surface of, 60 Oscillation
Lepton number, 34 of the Higgs field, 68
Leptons, 12
LHC, 14, 69
Life, 25 Parameters, 15
Lightyear, 30 of the Standard Model, 15
Lithium, 17, 18, 26 Particles, 11, 13
Peculiar velocity, 37
Periodic Table, 17
Magnet, 24 Perturbation, 57
Magnetic field, 12, 13, 20 Photon, 2, 13, 22, 25, 33, 40
of the earth, 20 Planck energy, 101, 102
Magnitude, 9 collision with, 101
Mass(es), 31 Planck length, 100
of elementary particles, 15 Planck scale, 102
of particles, 69, 107 Plancks constant, 13, 22
of stars etc., 30 Planets, 20, 25
Matter Positron, 33, 40
as opposed to radiation, 47 Primordial energy density perturbation, 58
Matter dominated universe, 48 Principle of Relativity, 88
Mean-square, 60 Proportional to, 9
Mean-square perturbation, 94 Proton, 17, 33, 35, 40
Mechanics, 12 number per neutron, 40
Meter, 14 Pulsar, 26, 30
MeV, 36
Milky Way, 26
Molecule, 18 Quantum effects, 13
Multiplication signs Quantum Electrodynamics, 13
suppressed in equations, 32 Quantum field theory, 12
Multiverse, 4 Quantum fluctuation, 46
of the Higgs field, 69
of the inflaton field, 75
Neutral, 18 Quantum mechanics, 13
Neutrality, 20 Quantum physics, 13
Neutrino, 2, 12, 25, 28, 33, 40, 107 Quarks, 12, 17
collision process, 33
Neutrino astronomy, 28
Neutron decay, 17, 33, 35, 40 Radiation
Neutron degeneracy, 26 as opposed to matter, 47
Neutron star, 26, 30 Radiation dominated universe, 48
Non-Euclidean geometry, 94 Random motion, 2
Nuclear fission, 34 Rate of change, 56
Nuclear fusion, 25, 34 Repulsive force, 18
120 Index
Rest energy, 32 Statistically isotropic, 2

of a decaying particle, 35 Statistical properties, 59
Reverse process, 33 Stretched scales, 48
String theory, 12
Strong force, 18
Scalar field, 67 Sun, 25
Scale Supernova, 26, 28, 30
of a Fourier component, 94
Scale factor, 37
Schrdingers cat, 76 Telescopes, 28
Second, 14 Temperature, 2, 49
Silk damping, 97 Thermal equilibrium, 40, 49
Size Thermodynamics, 50
of stars etc., 30 Time-reversal invariance, 52
Slow roll inflation, 102
Smoothed
energy density, 57 Units
Smoothing MKS, 14
of inflaton field, 75 Natural Units, 101
Smoothing scale, 58
Space station, 38
Special Relativity, 13, 88 Vacuum fluctuation. See Quantum fluctuation
Species, 11 Vacuum strength of the Higgs field, 67
Spectrum Velocity, 36
of CMB anisotropy, 98, 99
of curvature perturbation , 96
of photon density contrast, 98 Warm Inflation, 77
Spectrum of a perturbation, 94 Water molecule, 18
Speed, 36 Wavelength, 22
Speed of light, 13 Weight, 87
Standard Model, 11, 13 White dwarf, 25, 30
Stars, 1, 20, 25, 27
Static electricity, 20
Statistically homogeneous, 2 Zero mass, 32

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David H.

ISSN 1614-659X ISSN 2197-6651 (electronic)

Springer Cham Heidelberg New York Dordrecht London

Cover illustration: Cosmic Timeline Illustration.

Printed on acid-free paper

Springer International Publishing AG Switzerland is part of Springer Science+Business Media

Lancaster, UK David H. Lyth

A More Detail with Some Mathematics .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 1

Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.

Why Should You Believe Me?

Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 7

Fig. 2.1 One things is one thing

Nature and natures laws lay hid in night:

The Twin Pillars of Physics

Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 11

The History of Physics

To specify the fundamental constants we need to choose units for length,

General relativity Special relativity

Fig. 3.1 The history of physics

Standard Model Parameters In addition to the fundamental constants, a

Matter, though divisible in an extreme degree, is nevertheless not infinitely divisible. : : : I

Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 17

Fig. 4.1 Picture of a typical e

A normal atom is neutral, being composed of equal numbers of protons and

Electric and Magnetic Fields

Now we come to electromagnetic radiation. In the simplest kind of electromagnetic

There are countless Suns and countless Earths : : :

Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 25

Observing the Universe

Electromagnetic radiation is nowadays observed over the whole range of frequen-

Fig. 5.2 Gravitational radiation (Source: NASA [www.nasa.gov])

The Cosmic Backgrounds

Generating gravitational radiation

Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 31

Fig. 6.1 The energy of a E/ mc2

Table 6.2 Nuclear and 2

Table 6.3 These three Baryon number Charge Lepton number

Other Conserved Quantities

The energy unit

: : : nuclear species must have originated : : : as a consequence of a continuous building-up

We have some certain knowledge of the observable Universe, only after it is

Expansion of the Universe

The observable Universe is expanding. To understand what that means, we can

Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 37

Fig. 7.2 The circle

What Happens During the Known History

Formation of light nuclei

Why atom formation is the epoch of last scattering

The introduction of such a [cosmological] constant implies a considerable renunciation of

About the Cosmological Constant

Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 45

outrageous. Einstein realised almost immediately that this is possible according

one of many Universes, in which the cosmological constant takes on practically

How the Energy Density Depends on the Scale Factor

Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 49

Thermal Equilibrium During the First Stage

How thermal equilibrium works

If / 1=a4 corresponding to radiation domination this gives a / t1=2 and H D 1=2t.

The contribution to g2 from comoving wavenumbers in an interval dk is Pg .k/dk=k,

Since m is proportional to a3 , the quantity a3 m is independent of a and is equal to