Scientists Unravel Evolution of the Early Universe with Ultracold Atoms

Our universe was first created during the Big Bang, spawning stars and galaxies that helped populate the universe. Now, physicists have reproduced this event, creating a pattern resembling the cosmic wave background radiation in a laboratory simulation.

In simplified terms, the Big Bang was an explosion that generated sound. The sudden expansion of the universe during its inflationary period created ripples in the space-time. These echoes are known as the the cosmic microwave. Extensive measurements of the CMB have actually come from the orbiting Cosmic Background Explorer in the 1990s and later the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe and various ground-based observatories. This data has given cosmologists a snapshot of how the universe was created about 380,000 years after the Big Bang. Yet in order to learn a bit more about it, the scientists decided to simulate the Big Bang.

In order to accomplish this feat, the researchers harnessed ultracold atos. More specifically, they found that under certain conditions, a cloud of atoms chilled to a billionth of a degree above absolute zero in a vacuum chamber displays phenomena similar to those that unfolded following the Big Bang.

"At this ultracold temperature, atoms get excited collectively," said Chen-Lung Hung, one of the researchers, in a news release. "They act as if they are sound waves in air."

In fact, the dense package of matter and radiation that existed in the very early universe generated similar sound-wave excitations. These synchronized generations of sound waves correlated with the researchers' speculations about inflation in the early universe.

"Inflation set out the initial conditions for the early universe to create similar sound waves in the cosmic fluid formed by matter and radiation," said Hung in a news release.

The findings reveal a little bit more about the origins of the universe. In addition, the findings may serve as an excellent tool for probing the properties of cosmic fluid in the early universe. This, in term, could allow them to better understand interesting phenomena in nature.

The findings are published in the journal Science.