The inevitable death of our universe - Vacuum decay
What if our universe comes with a way to self-destruct in such an efficient way that any physical thing would just stop existing for ever.
To explain how could our universe destroy it self we need to understand two principles.
Everything in the universe has an energy level. The higher the energy level, the more energy there is in the system.
For example wood has a high level of energy, it can be burned. Burning it releases the chemical energy stored inside it and turns it into heat. The ash is at a lower energy level than the wood before.
Everything in the universe tries to move to its ground state, a state in which it is completely stable, and has as little energy as possible. If something has a lot of energy it is unstable and wants to get rid of it to reach the ground state and become stable. This is true for every system, even in the world of quantum mechanics.
The universe gets its properties from the quantum fields. The fields tell particles how to behave and interact.
Like everything in the universe they want to be in the lowest energy level possible, which is called a vacuum state.
The scientists think that all the fields have reached their vacuum state except one, the Higgs field. They believe that there is a possibility that the Higgs field is not stable but metastable. Which means that it is not stable but is in a position where it seems to be stable. The Higgs field is thought to be responsible for the mass of the particles.
Which rules almost how everything in the universe interacts.
What would happen if the Higgs field is in a false vacuum?
Then the Higgs field still has a lot of energy which is waiting to be released. A random spark like quantum tunneling could release the potential energy. This could happen at anytime and without warning.
If at anypoint in time this vacuum decay starts there is no turning back. This would be a chain reaction starting at some point in space and growing in all directions at the speed of light. This sphere would be surrounded by a shell of energy that devours everything. This bubble will continue to grow forever, erasing the universe on its way.
Our destruction would be instant!
If the energy level of the Higgs field changes, it changes all of the physics.
Vacuum decay wount just destroy life ,it will destroy the chemistry itself. Making the universe we know, impossible.
We don't know how the universe would change.
At this point this is just a theory, speculation based on our understanding of the universe.
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One interesting fact is that under the assumption there is no new physics (no new phenomenon beyond the Standard Model), the universe is metastable. This can be deduced from the precision measurement of the masses of the fundamental particles like the W-boson, the top quark and the Higgs boson. However, the time needed to move from one vacuum (the local minimum of the potential) to the true minimum of the potential is large enough. This being said, the assumption that there is no new phenomenon between the currently probed TeV energy scale and the Planck scale is very strong (and very unnatural).
This is just too eerie to think about. The idea of us being just this tiny blip in the cosmos is mind boggling in itself. Have fun out there and good luck with future posts!
I agree, it is just a theory my friend !Thinking about stuff never harmed anyone. Good luck to you too!
A more hopeful view from Einstein:
"The vacuum decay, a new concept
The entire universe, our piece of vacuum and even inside of atoms, would swarm with particles and antiparticles virtual that would exist for very short time and are constantly renewed.
When real particles travel in a vacuum that is everywhere in the universe, vacuum state fluctuations create their mass. The vacuum presents itself to it, viscous, it is this viscosity that gives mass to particles.
The particles of the vacuum upon cooling to 2.7 K today, order its selves as the spins of the atoms in a magnetic field, they are all polarized in a certain direction, which gives a certain viscosity to vacuum.
This viscosity of the vacuum imposes mass to particles, this field is the Higgs field. It is possible that at the beginning of the universe, the Higgs particles were disordered, then all particles of matter had zero mass, but with inflation and cooling of the universe, the Higgs particles become polarized, providing strength to the acceleration of elementary particles, even neutrino. In other words, the Higgs field slows down quarks that make up the objects we see, raise, and move.
In summary, the inertial mass of a particle is resulting from the degree of interaction with the Higgs field. The Higgs boson is a particle that is extracted from the vacuum causing high-energy collisions. Therefore this is an indication that a true vacuum state is impossible, as approaching a vacuum state would cause Higgs Bosons to spontaneously disrupt the completion of the vacuum state.
In 1934, Georges Lemaître (1894 − 1966) pointed out that the effect of the cosmological constant of relativity was similar to that of the energy density of the vacuum state. In other words, that the energy of the vacuum is compatible with the relativity requires that it impose a negative pressure, exactly opposite to its energy density. This negative pressure is a repulsive force that would explain the accelerating expansion of the Universe, seen everywhere, specifically since 1998.
Unfortunately the effect of this energy of the vacuum state, is infinite, about 10120 times larger than the value observed. This therefore makes this concept unusable.
The accelerating expansion of the Universe is currently assigned to a mysterious « dark energy ».
To account for all observations we must appeal to dark matter, the energy of the vacuum, dark energy, inflation, but nothing sticks with our theories and this requires us to imagine exotic concepts.
It is possible that we are on the eve of a major upheaval in physics. Currently our theories are facing a wall like in the early 20th century when we went from classical mechanics to relativity and classical physics to quantum physics.
« It is absolutely possible that beyond what our senses perceive, there are hiding unsuspected worlds. » Albert Einstein(1879-1955)"
If we can trust Einstein, our Universe is infinite, self-renewing, and everlasting.
ElDorado57.
just a small typo: it is not 10120 times larger but 10120 times larger :)
I copied the article.
That figure, It's actually meaningless, as infinite is much, MUCH, LARGER than ANY effect observed. That's what makes it unusable.
This is actually a problem when one tries to build model. Large hierarchies are unnatural and it is a field in itself in trying to explain them :)