What happens is a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang

What happens in a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second after Big Bang?

Ultra-sensitive short-wave ultraviolet violet detector, built at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), may soon provide an answer for scientists.

This new purple detector, published May 2 at the American Physical Society meeting in Denver, was built for groundbreaking experiments in collaboration with NIST, Princeton University, Dai. University of Colorado at Boulder, and University of Chicago. Although NIST is famous for measurements within the Earth, an extended project at NIST's Boulder campus plays an important role in studying the Cosmic Shortwave Platform (CMB) - the dim light of Big Bang still exists in the universe. This project previously built amplifiers and camcorders for CMB experiments in Antarctica, in balloon observatories, and on Atacama Plateau in Chile.

The new experiment will start about a year from now on the Chilean desert and include the installation of a series of extremely powerful NIST sensors on a telescope.

These detectors will look for the most subtle signs in CMB from primitive gravity waves - running in the space structure - the time since the Universe was founded over 13 billion years ago. Such waves are thought to leave traces of unknown but special on the direction of CMB's electromagnetic field, called 'B-type polarization'. These waves - never before confirmed by measurement - are likely to be detectable today if sensitive devices are used.

Kent Irwin, NIST physicist, directs the project, saying: 'This is one of the major challenges for the scientific community in the next 20 years'.

If discovered, these waves will be the clearest evidence supporting 'hypothetical theory', suggesting that the universe we observe is now expanding rapidly from an atomic-sized amount, Leave gravity waves.

Ki Won Yoon, NIST postdoctoral scholar, who described the project at the APS meeting, said: 'B-polarization is the most important evidence concerning hypothesis, which so far not observed. The detection of primary gravity waves through CMB polarization can be an important step in proving the hypothesis. "

That data can provide insight into the string theory model of the universe and other theories of physics.

Such types of experiments can only be done by studying the universe as a whole, because the particles and electromagnetic fields at the beginning of the 'inflated' era are 10 billion times more energetic than the energy available. can be achieved by hitting the strongest element on Earth today. At such an energy scale, separate fundamental forces are expected to merge together.

Irwin said: 'The universe is a physics laboratory. If you look away, you are actually looking at the past, it is possible that you are observing the interactions that appear at the energy level beyond the range of possible experiments on Earth. "

Recent studies on CMB focus on measuring space changes in temperature or energy that exist about 380,000 years after the Big Bang. Radiation cycles allow scientists to describe the distribution of matter and energy that has evolved into stars and galaxies today.

By comparing measurements with predictions made by many theories, scientists have added to the history of the universe, reducing its lifespan (13.7 billion years).

In contrast, NIST's new purple detectors are designed to measure not only temperature, but also polarity. The B-shaped polarization signal can be a million times fainter than the temperature signal.

To detect such cycles, the NIST detector will collect significant amounts of radiation, and is not affected by system errors such as vibration or magnetic field interference. In addition, advanced access control and signal processing procedures are needed

The new sensor is a model for NIST spectrophotometers, which will significantly increase the sensitivity of future experiments by making thousands of purple detectors into units that can be deployed on cameras. frozen telescope.

The cosmic microwave temperature fluctuates within 5 years of WMAP data.The average temperature is 2,726 Kelvin (temperature less than 0 degrees, equivalent to -270 degrees C or -455 degrees F), colors represent small temperature fluctuations.The red zone is warmer and the cooler blue area is about 0,0002 degrees.(Photo: NASA / WMAP science group)