New Theory Challenges the Big Bang: Could It Be the Start of Everything?

The Big Bang is often thought of as the explosive start of our Universe. But what if that’s not the whole story? What if the Universe came from something else—something familiar yet surprising?

In a recent study published in Physical Review D, my team and I suggest a different idea. Our research proposes that the Big Bang could actually be the result of a gravitational collapse. Instead of being a true beginning, it might have been a bounce from a massive black hole.

This concept, which we call the black hole universe, offers a fresh lens on how the cosmos may have formed. Unlike the standard Big Bang theory, which has been successful but leaves many questions unanswered, our model is rooted in existing physics.

The current cosmological model is based on the Big Bang and a process called cosmic inflation. This inflation suggests that the early Universe expanded rapidly, but many questions remain. For instance, it begins with a singularity—a point where traditional physics fails. How did everything start? Why does the Universe appear so flat and vast? These are puzzles that still perplex scientists.

To explain the Universe’s structure, physicists have added concepts like dark energy, but these elements remain largely mysterious. The Big Bang model, while effective, relies on introducing unknown components that we’ve never observed directly.

Our new approach flips the focus inward. Instead of studying an expanding Universe, we examine what happens when matter becomes too dense and collapses under gravity—a familiar process seen in the formation of black holes.

In 1965, physicist Roger Penrose showed that gravitational collapse generally leads to a singularity, an insight that earned him a share of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics. However, these theorems are based on classical physics, which may not fully apply at extreme densities. If we include quantum mechanics, the narrative changes.

In our paper, we demonstrate that gravitational collapse might not always lead to a singularity. We found a mathematical solution indicating that instead of collapsing indefinitely, matter can bounce back, creating a new expanding Universe.

This bounce is enabled by the quantum exclusion principle, which prevents identical particles from occupying the same state. This means that as matter collapses, it cannot compress forever; it eventually rebounds, creating a universe very much like our own.

Surprisingly, this bounce leads to scenarios resembling inflation and dark energy, not driven by hypothetical fields, but rather by the physics of the bounce itself. This model is unique because it offers predictions that can be tested. For example, we anticipate a slight positive curvature of the Universe, suggesting it may not be perfectly flat.

Future observations, such as those from the Euclid mission, may provide evidence for this curvature. If confirmed, this would support our theory and enrich our understanding of cosmic origins.

This framework also opens discussions on other mysteries: What about supermassive black holes or dark matter? Future missions like Arrakhis will help us explore these phenomena, providing insight into dark matter and galaxy evolution.

So, where do we fit into this vast cosmic puzzle? In this new perspective, our observable Universe might exist within a black hole from a larger “parent” Universe. We are not the center of everything; instead, we are part of an ongoing cosmic cycle shaped by gravity and quantum mechanics.

In summary, this black hole universe concept does more than solve problems in current models. It provides a path to explore our Universe’s earliest moments and challenges our understanding of existence itself.

Enrique Gaztanaga, Professor at the Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation (University of Portsmouth)

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Source link