Luminous matter may arise from a turbulent plasma state of the early universe

Per Bak and Maya Paczuski

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2005, vol. 348, issue C, 277-280

Abstract: The almost perfect uniformity of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation, discovered by Penzias and Wilson in 1965 (Astrophys. J. 142 (1965) 419), appears to present clearcut evidence that the universe was uniform and in equilibrium at the decoupling transition when a plasma of protons and electrons condensed into a gas of Hydrogen. COBE indicates that only very small ripples of order 10-5 existed at decoupling. Gravity then caused hydrogen to cluster and possibly reheat parts of the universe to form the luminous matter that we observe today. We suggest an alternative scenario, where a spatially intermittent structure of extremely hot matter already existed in an otherwise uniform plasma state at the decoupling transition. The plasma was not in equilibrium but in a very high Reynolds number turbulent state. The sparse bursts would not affect the uniformity of the CMB radiation. Luminous matter originates from localized hot bursts already present in the plasma state prior to decoupling. No reheating, and no exotic matter is needed to get luminous matter.

Keywords: Large-scale universe; Luminous matter; High Reynolds number turbulence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378437104011513
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only. Journal offers the option of making the article available online on Science direct for a fee of $3,000

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:348:y:2005:i:c:p:277-280

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2004.08.034

Access Statistics for this article

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications is currently edited by K. A. Dawson, J. O. Indekeu, H.E. Stanley and C. Tsallis

More articles in Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().