Quantum interactions may have locked early universe's fields into existing energy states
The universe may be trapped in its own comfort zone, and a researcher in the College of Engineering and Computer Science has helped explain why it cannot seem to leave.
The universe may be trapped in its own comfort zone, and a researcher in the College of Engineering and Computer Science has helped explain why it cannot seem to leave.
The short version
- A new study suggests the universe could be locked into its current state by the same kinds of quantum effects that scientists study when trying to preserve fragile information inside a quantum computer.
- This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies .
- The paper, titled "Cosmic Lockdown: When Decoherence Saves the Universe from Tunneling," has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics .
What happened
The research addresses a longstanding worry among physicists: that the universe could be sitting in what is known as a false vacuum, a state that looks stable but is not actually the lowest-energy configuration available to it. Quantum mechanics allows a field to tunnel out of such a state without warning, a shift that could alter the fundamental properties of the cosmos.
Why it matters
That concern is not purely theoretical.
Summary by Nerd News Network. Read the full article at Phys.org via the links above and below.