Abstract
Recent results and announcements by Planck and BICEP2 have led to impor- tant controversies in the fields of Cosmology and Particle Physics. As new ideas and alter- native approaches can since then more easily emerge, the link between the Mathematical Physics aspects of theories and the interpretation of experimental results becomes more direct. This evolution is also relevant for Particle Physics experiments at very high energy, where the interpretation of data on the highest-energy cosmic rays remains a major theo- retical and phenomenological challenge. Alternative particle physics and cosmology can raise fundamental questions such as that of the structure of vacuum and space-time. In particular, the simplified description of the physical vacuum contained in standard quan- tum field theory does not necessarily correspond to reality at a deeper level, and similarly for the relativistic space-time based on four real variables. In a more general approach, the definition itself of vacuum can be a difficult task. The spinorial space-time (SST) we suggested in 1996-97 automatically incorporates a local privileged space direction (PSD) for each comoving observer, possibly leading to a locally anisotropic vacuum structure. As the existence of the PSD may have been confirmed by Planck, and a possible dis- covery of primordial B-modes in the polarization of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB) may turn out to contain new evidence for the SST, we explore other possible implications of this approach to space-time. The SST structure can naturally be at the origin of Quantum Mechanics at distance scales larger than the fundamental one if standard particles are dealt with as vacuum excitations. We also discuss possible implica- tions of our lack of knowledge of the structure of vacuum, as well as related theoretical, phenomenological and cosmological uncertainties. Pre-Big Bang scenarios and new ulti- mate constituents of matter (including superbradyons) are crucial open subjects, together with vacuum structure and the interaction between vacuum and standard matter.
Highlights
In [1], we discuss alternatives to standard cosmology to interpret recent results by Planck [2,3,4] and the possible existence of primordial cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB) B-modes
As emphasized in [1], if CMB B-modes corresponding to a signature of the early Universe dynamics are found, they can, together with the local privileged space direction (PSD) [12, 13] possibly observed by Planck [4], provide an unprecedented evidence [14, 15] for the spinorial space-time (SST) we introduced in 1996-97 [16, 17]
A crucial question is: why should the harmonic-oscillator zero modes of bosonic quantum fields be permanently present in vacuum even in the absence of surrounding conventional matter, as postulated by standard quantum field theory (SQFT)? In [39, 40] and in [43, 44], we argued that this is not necessarily the case and that the cosmological constant problem can be solved in this way
Summary
In [1], we discuss alternatives to standard cosmology (conventional Big Bang + inflation, ΛCDM) to interpret recent results by Planck [2,3,4] and the possible existence of primordial CMB B-modes. The 2013 Planck results [2, 3] gave rise to a controversy [21, 22] on the predictions of inflationary models [23, 24], involving in particular the possible origin of primordial gravitational waves able to generate CMB B-modes. This debate was amplified [25,26,27] by the March 2014 BICEP2 result. Recent work on inflation can be found in [28,29,30,31,32,33,34]
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