Despite the remarkable progress in understanding the Universe, many paradoxes and questions remain unsolved. Physicists have come up with sophisticated theories to explain these unknowns, but there might be a “simpler” solution to all these gaps in cosmology. According to Neil Turok, professor at the Higgs Chair in Theoretical Physics at the University of Edinburgh (Scotland), there could be another “mirror” universe that existed before the Big Bang, a universe that is a reflection of our universe, but going back in time.
Although the concept of another universe, which “flows” in reverse, is difficult to visualize, it is simpler to approach from a physical point of view. It would balance out some of the observed asymmetries in the Universe, could explain dark matter, and replace some complex cosmological theories like cosmic inflation and string theory, which Turok believes are less elegant solutions.
“Imagining the Big Bang as a mirror explains many features of the Universe that would otherwise seem at odds with the most fundamental laws of physics,” wrote Turok, who published his study in the journal Annals of Physics.
Could there be another “reverse” universe?
“The progress we have made so far convinces me that there are probably alternatives to the standard orthodoxy, which has become a constraint from which we must break free,” says the researcher.
The laws of physics should exhibit CPT (charge, parity, and time reversal) symmetry, meaning that any physical interaction can be mirrored. Specifically, every particle should have an antiparticle of opposite charge, every space should have an inverted image, and time should be reversible.
However, we do not observe this in the Universe. Time only flows forward, and particles outnumber antimatter. As far as we know, our universe is not symmetrical.
But “the mirror universe hypothesis restores the symmetry of the Universe,” Turok argued. He compared this idea to our image in a mirror: “Together with your image in the mirror you are more symmetrical than you are alone,” says the physicist.
A simpler explanation than the Standard Model
By extending the model of our universe back in time to the Big Bang, “we found its mirror image, a pre-Big Bang universe in which (relative to us) time flows backwards and antiparticles outnumber particles,” Turok wrote.
This hypothesis could solve the mystery of dark matter, an invisible substance believed to make up 85% of all matter in the Universe. According to the mirror hypothesis, weak and subatomic particles, called neutrinos, could be ideal candidates to explain this phenomenon, write Futurism.
Since so far we have only observed “left-handed” neutrinos, there could be “right-handed” neutrinos in this mirror universe.
Moreover, this theory could also explain why the Universe appears so uniform and “flat”. The prevailing theory holds that a period of accelerated, faster-than-light expansion called cosmic inflation shaped the Universe as it is today, but we have yet to observe the large gravitational waves it would have produced.
With the mirror universe hypothesis, “statistical arguments explain why the Universe is flat and uniform and has a positively accelerated expansion, without the need for cosmic inflation,” Turok wrote.
Of course, more evidence is needed to validate this intriguing hypothesis. But Turok argues that even if disproved, it demonstrates that there may be simpler explanations than those offered by the Standard Model.
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Source: www.descopera.ro
