Silent Universe Research Articles

A prediction for anisotropies in the nearby Hubble flow

We assess the dominant low-redshift anisotropic signatures in the distance-redshift relation and redshift drift signals. We adopt general-relativistic irrotational dust models allowing for gravitational radiation — the `quiet universe models' — which are extensions of the silent universe models. Using cosmological simulations evolved with numerical relativity, we confirm that the quiet universe model is a good description on scales larger than those of collapsing structures. With this result, we reduce the number of degrees of freedom in the fully general luminosity distance and redshift drift cosmographies by a factor of ∼ 2 and ∼ 2.5, respectively, for the most simplified case. We predict a dominant dipolar signature in the distance-redshift relation for low-redshift data, with direction along the gradient of the large-scale density field. Further, we predict a dominant quadrupole in the anisotropy of the redshift drift signal, which is sourced by the electric Weyl curvature tensor. The signals we predict in this work should be tested with present and near-future cosmological surveys.

When the silent universe speaks. Testing Camus’ notion of the absurd in the alien encounters of "Contact" and "Arrival"

Albert Camus' concept of absurdity - as articulated in his works The Stranger, The Myth of Sisyphus, and The Rebel - outlines a metaphysics of inherent struggle between the human mind that strives for unity and clarity and an inhumanly silent universe. When an absurd mind realises its own inescapable frontiers of knowing, meaning, separation and mortality, Camus argues, it has the Sisyphean choice to embrace such a universe nevertheless, while forever retaining the spirit of revolt that defies it.
 In this essay I analyse, side by side, two first-contact films - Robert Zemeckis' Contact (1997) and Denis Villeneuve's Arrival (2016) - to test the validity of Camus' metaphysics in a universe where human estrangement seems to be disrupted by cosmic visitors. The films' thought experiments support Camus' universal vision, indirectly suggesting that even aliens are prone to absurdity. On the other hand, both films offer an approach of intimate communion with the cosmos, in light of which Camus' description of the universe as a stranger seems to demonstrate a limited perspective.

When the silent universe speaks. Testing Camus’ notion of the absurd in the alien encounters of "Contact" and "Arrival"

When the silent universe speaks. Testing Camus’ notion of the absurd in the alien encounters of "Contact" and "Arrival"

Environment dependence of the growth of the most massive objects in the Universe

This paper investigates the growth of the most massive cosmological objects. We utilize the Simsilun simulation, which is based on the approximation of the silent universe. In the limit of spatial homogeneity and isotropy the silent universes reduce to the standard FLRW models. We show that within the approximation of the silent universe the formation of the most massive cosmological objects differs from the standard background-dependent approaches. For objects with masses above $10^{15} M_\odot$ the effect of spatial curvature (overdense regions are characterized by positive spatial curvature) leads to measurable effects. The effect is analogous to the effect that the background cosmological model has on the formation of these objects (i.e. the higher matter density and spatial curvature the faster the growth of cosmic structures). We measure this by the means of the mass function and show that the mass function obtained from the Simsilun simulation has a higher amplitude at the high-mass end compared to standard mass function such as the Press-Schechter or the Tinker mass function. For comparison, we find that the expected mass of most massive objects using the Tinker mass function is $4.4^{+0.8}_{-0.6} \, \times 10^{15} M_\odot$, whereas for the Simsilun simulation is $6.3^{+1.0}_{-0.8} \, \times 10^{15} M_\odot$. We conclude that the nonlinear relativistic effects could affect the formation of the most massive cosmological objects, leading to a relativistic environment-dependence of the growth rate of the most massive clusters.

Gravitational entropy and the cosmological no-hair conjecture

The gravitational entropy and no-hair conjectures seems to predict contradictory future states of our Universe. The growth of the gravitational entropy is associated with the growth of inhomogeneity, while the no-hair conjecture argues that a universe dominated by dark energy should asymptotically approach a homogeneous and isotropic de Sitter state. The aim of this paper is to study these two conjectures. The investigation is based on the Simsilun simulation, which simulates the universe using the approximation of the Silent Universe. The Silent Universe is a solution to the Einstein equations that assumes irrotational, non-viscous, and insulated dust, with vanishing magnetic part of the Weyl curvature. The initial conditions for the Simsilun simulation are sourced from the Millennium simulation, which results with a realistically appearing but relativistic at origin simulation of a universe. The Simsilun simulation is evolved from the early universe (t = 25 Myr) till far future (t = 1000 Gyr). The results of this investigation show that both conjectures are correct. On global scales, a universe with a positive cosmological constant and non-positive spatial curvature does indeed approach the de Sitter state. At the same time it keeps generating the gravitational entropy.

Relativistic numerical cosmology with silent universes

Relativistic numerical cosmology is most often based either on the exact solutions of the Einstein equations, or perturbation theory, or weak-field limit, or the BSSN formalism. The silent universe provides an alternative approach to investigate relativistic evolution of cosmological systems. The silent universe is based on the solution of the Einstein equations in 1 + 3 comoving coordinates with additional constraints imposed. These constraints include: the gravitational field is sourced by dust and cosmological constant only, both rotation and magnetic part of the Weyl tensor vanish, and the shear is diagnosable. This paper describes the code simsilun (free software distributed under the terms of the reposi General Public License), which implements the equations of the silent universe. The paper also discusses applications of the silent universe and it uses the Millennium simulation to set up the initial conditions for the code simsilun. The simulation obtained this way consists of 16 777 216 worldlines, which are evolved from z = 80 to z = 0. Initially, the mean evolution (averaged over the whole domain) follows the evolution of the background ΛCDM model. However, once the evolution of cosmic structures becomes nonlinear, the spatial curvature evolves from to at the present day. The emergence of the spatial curvature is associated with and being smaller by approximately 0.05 compared to the ΛCDM.

A significant life: human meaning in a silent universe

Contents Introduction Chapter One: A Meaningful Life? Chapter Two: Is Happiness Enough? Chapter Three: Narrative Values Chapter Four: Meaningful Lives, Good Lives, Beautiful Lives Chapter Five: Justifying Ourselves to Ourselves Conclusion: Not Everything, But Something Suggestions for Further Reading Acknowledgments Endnotes Index

The game of active search for extra-terrestrial intelligence: breaking the ‘Great Silence’

AbstractThe search for extra-terrestrial intelligence (SETI) has been performed principally as a one-way survey, listening of radio frequencies across the Milky Way and other galaxies. However, scientists have engaged in an active messaging only rarely. This suggests the simple rationale that if other civilizations exist and take a similar approach to ours, namely listening but not broadcasting, the result is a silent universe. A simple game theoretical model, the prisoner's dilemma, explains this situation: each player (civilization) can passively search (defect), or actively search and broadcast (cooperate). In order to maximize the payoff (or, equivalently, minimize the risks) the best strategy is not to broadcast. In fact, the active search has been opposed on the basis that it might be dangerous to expose ourselves. However, most of these ideas have not been based on objective arguments, and ignore accounting of the possible gains and losses. Thus, the question stands: should we perform an active search? I develop a game-theoretical framework where civilizations can be of different types, and explicitly apply it to a situation where societies are either interested in establishing a two-way communication or belligerent and in urge to exploit ours. The framework gives a quantitative solution (a mixed-strategy), which is how frequent we should perform the active SETI. This frequency is roughly proportional to the inverse of the risk, and can be extremely small. However, given the immense amount of stars being scanned, it supports active SETI. The model is compared with simulations, and the possible actions are evaluated through the San Marino scale, measuring the risks of messaging.

Petrov type I electric silent universes must possess symmetries: G1, G2 or G3

We prove that all Petrov type I, silent universe solutions of Einstein's field equations with a zero cosmological constant must possess symmetries: G1, G2 or G3.

Petrov type I silent universes with G3 isometry group: the uniqueness result recovered

Irrotational dust spacetimes with vanishing magnetic Weyl curvature are called silent universes (Matarrese et al 1994 Phys. Rev. D 72 320). The silent universe conjecture (Sopuerta 1997 Phys. Rev. D 55 5936, van Elst et al 1997 Class. Quantum Grav. 14 1151) states that the only algebraically general silent universes are the orthogonally spatially homogeneous Bianchi I models. In the same paper by Sopuerta, this was confirmed for the subcase where the spacetime also admits a group G3 of isometries. However, the proof contains a conceptual mistake. We recover the result in a different way.

Dynamics of quiet universes

We study the stability of a contracting {\it silent universe}, which is a spacetime with irrotational dust and vanishing magnetic part of the Weyl tensor, $H_{ab}=0$. Two general relativistic backgrounds are analyzed; one is an attractor of {\it silent universes}, i.e., a locally Kasner spacetime, and the other is a particular class of inhomogeneous Szekeres solutions. In both cases their stabilities against perturbations with non-zero magnetic part depend on a contraction configuration; a spindle-like collapse is unstable, while a pancake-like collapse is still stable. We also find that a similar instability exists in spindle collapse for a Newtonian case. We conclude that $H_{ab}=0$ is not a generic ansatz even in general relativistic dust collapse.

Dynamics of silent universes

We investigate the local non--linear dynamics of irrotational dust with vanishing magnetic part of the Weyl tensor, $H_{ab}$. Once coded in the initial conditions, this dynamical restriction is respected by the relativistic evolution equations. Thus, the outcome of the latter are {\it exact solutions} for special initial conditions with $H_{ab}=0$, but with no symmetries: they describe inhomogeneous triaxial dynamics generalizing that of a fluid element in a Tolman--Bondi, Kantowski--Sachs or Szekeres geometry. A subset of these solutions may be seen as (special) perturbations of Friedmann models, in the sense that there are trajectories in phase--space that pass arbitrarily close to the isotropic ones. We find that the final fate of ever--expanding configurations is a spherical void, locally corresponding to a Milne universe. For collapsing configurations we find a whole family of triaxial attractors, with vanishing local density parameter $\Omega$. These attractors locally correspond to Kasner vacuum solutions: there is a single physical configuration collapsing to a degenerate {\it pancake}, while the generic configuration collapses to a triaxial {\it spindle} singularity. These {\it silent universe} models may provide a fair representation of the universe on super horizon scales. Moreover, one might conjecture that the non--local information carried by $H_{ab}$ becomes negligible during the late highly non--linear stages of collapse, so that the attractors we find may give all of the relevant expansion or collapse configurations of irrotational dust.

A relativistic approach to gravitational instability in the expanding Universe: second-order Lagrangian solutions

A Lagrangian relativistic approach to the non--linear dynamics of cosmological perturbations of an irrotational collisionless fluid is considered. Solutions are given at second order in perturbation theory for the relevant fluid and geometric quantities and compared with the corresponding ones in the Newtonian approximation. Specifically, we compute the density, the volume expansion scalar, the shear, the ``electric" part, or tide, and the ``magnetic" part of the Weyl tensor. The evolution of the shear and the tide beyond the linear regime strongly depends on the ratio of the characteristic size of the perturbation to the cosmological horizon distance. For perturbations on sub--horizon scales the usual Newtonian approximation applies, at least at the considered perturbative order; on super--horizon scales, instead, a new picture emerges, which we call ``silent universe", as each fluid element evolves independently of the environment, being unable to exchange signals with the surrounding matter through either sound waves or gravitational radiation. For perturbations inside the Hubble radius particular attention is paid in singling out non--local effects during the non--linear evolution of fluid elements. These non--local effects are shown to be carried by a traceless and divergenceless tensor, contained in the magnetic part of the Weyl tensor, which is dynamically generated as soon as the system evolves away from the linear regime.