Did Galaxies Grow from Quantum Static?

A new test could determine whether large-scale cosmic structures have microscopic origins

Did Galaxies Grow from Quantum Static?
Quantum fluctuations in the early universe may have seeded the formation of large cosmic structures, such as this galaxy cluster. Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble and RELICS

Some 13.8 billion years ago, the universe as we know it began in the instant of time we call the big bang. At this moment, very hot and dense energy and matter suffused the cosmos, fueling the expansion of space. In the first split second afterward, many physicists posit, the universe went through a phase of extremely rapid expansion: a process called inflation. One of the most marvelous predictions of this theory is that the arrangement of all the galaxies throughout the universe—the placement of all the “stuff” in the cosmos at the largest conceivable scales—was set by events taking place at the smallest possible level of measurement: the quantum realm. Proponents of this idea, however, have long faced a tricky question:

Can we ever confirm this microscopic origin story if all we can see today are the macroscopic results?

Source: www.scientificamerican.com/article/did-galaxies-grow-from-quantum-static/

CERN makes bold push to build €21-billion super-collider

European particle-physics lab will pursue a 100-kilometre machine to uncover the Higgs boson’s secrets — but it doesn’t yet have the funds! 

The decision was unanimously endorsed by the CERN Council on 19 June, following the plan’s approval by an independent panel in March. Europe’s preeminent particle-physics organization will need global help to fund the project, which is expected to cost at least €21 billion and would be a follow-up to the lab’s famed Large Hadron Collider. The new machine would collide electrons with their antimatter partners, positrons, by the middle of the century. The design — to be built in an underground tunnel near CERN’s location in Geneva, Switzerland — will enable physicists to study the properties of the Higgs boson and, later, to host an even more powerful machine that will collide protons and last well into the second half of the century.

Source: www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01866-9