What Happened Before the Big Bang

Copyright, January 12, 2016-All rights reserved. This blog is the intellectual property of Britt Maxwell P.E. You may not reproduce, edit, translate(off this web site), distribute, publish or host this document in any way without the permission of Britt Maxwell P. E.

INTRODUCTION

The Big Bang Theory is not a theory about the “bang” but what happened after the “bang.” The actual bang event is one of the great mysteries of cosmology. But here is my prediction: When we understand black holes, we will also understand the big bang. Advances in cosmology occur in two ways. One way is through improved observations and the other path is theoretical. I am proposing a cosmology that involves three theoretical frontiers: the big bang event, black holes and quantum gravity. Big bang cosmology is the result of looking back in time in a expanding universe. We can do this because of the strong observational evidence of this expansion and measurements of the cosmic microwave background that is leftover from the big bang. So backwards in time, the universe gets smaller and smaller until it shrinks to a point. From this thought process Georges Lemaître in 1931 (hypothèse de l'atome primitif) advocated an abrupt beginning of the universe from an initial, super dense concentration of nuclear matter that he called the “primeval atom.” The math of Einstein’s general theory of relativity indicates that the beginning point was a singularity- a point of infinite density. But Martin Bojowald (2008) explains that “the theory does not capture the fine, quantum structure of spacetime.” To figure out what really happened physicists developed the theory of loop quantum gravity. This concept avoids a singularity by limiting “how tightly matter can be concentrated and how strong gravity can become.” With this paradigm “time may have extended before the big bang...one possible scenario is that the initial state arose when a pre-existing universe collapsed under the attractive force of gravity. The density grew so high that gravity switched to being repulsive, and the universe started to expanding again. Cosmologists refer to this process as a bounce.” The collapse or contraction of a universe is often also called a “crunch.” Lehners, Steinhardt, and Turok (2009) state that:

...the idea of a “beginning,” the emergence of the universe from nothing is a very radical notion. A more conservative idea is that the universe existed before the big bang, perhaps even eternally. Historically this motivated many of the founders of the big bang theory including Friedman, Lemaitre, Einstein and Gamow, to take seriously an “oscillatory” universe model in which every epoch of expansion is followed by one of contraction and then by a “bounce,” at an event like a big bang...

But I wonder if bounce cosmology represents reality? Here is a list of questions I have that all involve the contraction phase that is often called "The Big Crunch."

1. Big Bang Cosmology requires that the early universe has only subatomic particles at extremely high densities. If the previous universe has baryonic matter (like we are made of), how does all that baryonic matter get shredded down to the subatomic particles that appear after the bang without passing that matter through black holes?
2. If the previous universe has black holes, those black holes should grow as the matter density increases during the contraction. So how do you avoid having one big black hole at the end of the contraction or losing a significant portion of the universe to black holes?
3. The previous question leads to this: What happens if only part of the previous universe participates in the contraction? Don't we need the whole universe to contract to get the bounce?
4. Our universe is expanding, showing that a future contraction is unlikely, so isn't the previous universe that did contract problematic?

I think that quantum gravity theory in bounce cosmology is telling us something important about what happens when matter becomes extremely dense, and that maybe we are not just seeing what happens when a universe contracts, but also what happens when a black hole becomes too massive. I think that because, an instant before the bounce, the density of matter in the universe and the density matter in a very large black hole could be the same. In order for the size of the black hole to be a factor, the mass in the core of a black hole must be compressible. So that as mass grows, a critical state must eventually occur.

If we consider a contracting universe, it would seem that all the mass must contribute. To accomplish that I think there must be one big black hole just before the bounce occurs. If the bounce is created by a quantum gravity event, then that same event could also happen in black holes that also have achieved the same density. The path to that maximum density would not change the quantum gravity event. So I think that bounce cosmology is really showing us that black holes (that are compressible) would bang or bounce at some maximum size before a singularity has a chance to occur. As a result I am herein proposing a black hole version of bounce cosmology that I call parent black hole cosmology. In this cosmology a contracting universe is replaced with a special kind of multiverse that provides the giant black holes that maybe collide and then bounce. I will also explain how these black holes might form in this multiverse environment. Paul Davies (2010) explains the multiverse as:

The favoured view now, and the one that Hawking shares, is that there were in fact many bangs, scattered through space and time, and many universes emerging there from, all perfectly naturally. The entire assemblage goes by the name of the multiverse....

One more problem with bounce cosmology is that it doesn’t need a multiverse, it's just a single universe that is either contracting or expanding, so it struggles to fit in with this larger model. Parent black hole cosmology on the other hand, cannot exist without a multiverse. I will show how a multiverse environment could provide a special class of very large black holes that could join and then bounce into a new universe. Admittedly the black hole adds to the baggage but in some ways it is also helpful.

A black hole is a region of space where the gravitational field is so strong that light can not escape. The outer boundary of a black hole is the event horizon, where the escape velocity equals the speed of light. The frontier of black holes is inside the event horizon. We also know that black holes have mass and acquire additional mass. I think that mass is initially stored in black holes in a very dense but non-critical quantum gravity state similar to mass in a neutron or maybe a quark star. But as the mass increases, eventually the density reaches a critical point. This is a concept that seems to be new to black hole theory.

The highest theoretical density is called the “Plank density.” Scientists think the density of the universe was near Plank density at 5 x 10^-44 seconds after the big bang (Plank time- http://physics.nist.gov/). Please note the negative sign in front of the 44 power term: This means 44 zeros to the right of the decimal (a very tiny fraction). PBH cosmogony uses the same the maximum density discovered in loop quantum gravity but it applies this limit to black holes. This erases the singularity in black holes and in the big bang. I think this cosmogony could work with a wide range of densities of matter in black holes as long as the density has some value that is not infinite. An interesting effect appears when we consider densities like those that occur in a neutron stars and even higher densities closer to the Planck density. When we consider densities in this range, the PBH becomes similar to the “primeval atom.”An interesting thing happens when we consider extremely high densities in a PBH, the initial object in PBH cosmogony becomes very similar to the “primeval atom,” except that black holes have properties that the primeval atom does not have. These properties could effect the event and maybe influence the future universe.

Theories like Einstein-Cartan as it is now formulated does not allow this because mass in this theory goes critical the instant a black hole is formed. This is the every black hole is a universe theory. Our universe contains 200 to maybe 400 billion galaxies and most of these contain a single super massive black hole. In addition each galaxy probably contains 100 million smaller stellar mass black holes (hubblesite.org).

THE SUPER-UNIVERSE AND PARENT BLACK HOLES

For over two decades astrophysicists have been trying to connect the beginning of the universe with black holes. When an origin for the big bang is proposed that is connected with black holes, the theory could be called a black hole cosmogony. Lee Smolin’s (1992) fecund universes is an earlier version of this type cosmogony. A more complex cosmogony of this kind was recently made by Afshordi et al (2014). This paper made the August 2014 cover of Scientific American. The proposed cosmogony is this type. The primary hypothesis is that our universe resulted from a larger system (often called a multiverse) and that the big bang was actually a bounce in a huge black hole that became too massive. The multiverse in this case is a special kind in which gravity is constant. That means that gravity functions the same way through out the multiverse but other properties can and do vary in each universe. I call this kind of multiverse a “super-universe.” It contains other universes and gigantic parent black holes (PBH) that form when there is a big bang. PBH(s) are a whole new class of black holes, much more massive than anything we know about, and also very rare, at the most only one per universe.

I think that a big bang and a new universe is most often created when two or more smaller PBH(s) collide and create a larger PBH that then achieves a critical bounce density. The key idea is that the density in the core of a black hole must change as it gets more massive, eventually becoming critical and triggering a quantum gravity event. In effect the mass in a black hole is allowed to do the same thing as a contracting universe. Equivalency with bounce cosmology begins when two or more PBH's collide. The huge addition of mass causes a density change in the core of the PBH. Figure 1 shows this equivalency principle. Bounce cosmology (from a contraction) can still occur, but a bounce

from a PBH in this environment may be more likely. This is the basis for PBH cosmology. So in this paradigm, the “primeval atom” is really a PBH, both of which could provide the initial extremely dense state of the early universe. Collisions are an important part of the natural self-organizing process in the cosmos. Planets, stars, black holes and galaxies all collide. I think that a collision of two or more PBH duplicates the result of a “Big Crunch,” because I don’t think that in a realistic crunch scenario, a gigantic black hole (a PBH) can be avoided. If that is the case then this proposed cosmogony is a dark energy version of Einstein’s cyclic cosmology. It does what a cyclic universe cannot do in a flat and expanding space. Instead of unnatural cycles or oscillations, a universe most often occurs through collisions of PBH (s). If black hole collisions are possible in the observable universe, then they could occur in the larger super-universe where gravity is universal.

WHERE DO PARENT BLACK HOLES COME FROM?

A smaller stable PBH might form in two different ways in the early universe. It could form quickly, similar with stellar mass black holes that form in supernovae or maybe slower, similar with super massive black holes that form in the center of galaxies. In the first case the smaller PBH would form because of the huge event horizon and the density of matter of the larger PBH that banged. Here inflation (exponential expansion with repulsive gravity) is an essential aspect of the process, as well as, the density of matter inside a black hole. If the density of a PBH is anywhere near the density of mass in a neutron star, then this scenario becomes possible. Since the bounce event occurs in a tiny fraction of a second, there will not be enough time for all the mass to escape the event horizon when inflation ends. So some mass gets trapped when gravity switches back to normal. This would result in a smaller residual PBH at the end of inflation. In this paradigm the PBH becomes too massive and basically sheds it’s outer shell to produce a new universe. The PBH loses mass and becomes stable. This process might be compared with stars that collapse into a black hole, but it would be a non- event without inflation, because expansion limited by the speed of light would not allow enough mass to escape the event horizon to produce a new universe.

In the second case the residual PBH forms in a way more like distant quasars. This scenario would seem to occur independent of the density of matter in the PBH. Quasars are super massive black holes that are shining brightly. Newly discovered distant quasars are believed to be the result of a process called “direct collapse”( Begelman, 2006). In this process star formation is by-passed and gas falls directly into a space to create a black hole. Along with forming a PBH, maybe self-organization of the universe initialized but then fails, similar with N body simulations of galaxies where dark matter was intentionally deficient in the simulation. The result would be something like an early partial-crunch of the universe. A “Big Crunch” scenario is one where the whole universe at the falls back into a single point under the influence of gravity. Maybe a partial-crunch could account for dark energy (the expansion of the universe) by creating global rotation. Research has been done toward this end (see paragraph below) but without the extra mass a PBH would provide. So I speculate that dark matter provides a gravity boost at the scale of galaxies and allows them to form, but at a the scale of the universe, dark matter is not able to match the effect of global rotation. I think it might be that this second method might be a way that mass is added to a PBH that had formed from the first way. In either case if matter is pulled into the PBH over billions of years, this would add rotational velocity to the system and result in a dynamic dark energy (as we have measured). This new larger PBH becomes a part of the expanding family of back hole sizes each with an origin that is connected with self-organizing processes.

There has been a lot of research connected to the rotation of the universe. The Gödel (1949) metric was the first solution of the Einstein equations with a rotating universe. Godlowski (2011) reviewed various investigations of global rotation of the universe as a possible source of dark energy. Godlowski and Szydlowski (2003) used a simple homogeneous model and concluded that “the universe acceleration increase is due to the presence of global rotation effects, although the cosmological constraint is still required to explain the SN (Super Nova) Ia data.” A shear free flat inhomogeneous model was used by Su and Chu in 2009 in an attempt to determine if the universe was rotating. Their model as well, produced a outward radial velocity that “may be used to explain parts of the accelerating universe.” In 2004 V.G. Krechet also considered a rotating universe to create the effect of inflation and dark energy. I think that these models fell short of matching the measurements of dark energy because the added mass provided by a PBH was not part of the analysis.

A DISCUSSION OF PARENT BLACK HOLE COSMOGONY

In this cosmogony we make an assumption about black holes that has not been made before. We assume that black holes have a inner core (inside the event horizon) that might be compared with a neutron star. We do not know the density of this inner core, but that really does not matter so long as this inner core is not typically at a critical density like we see in the Einstein-Cartan theory of gravity. With that theory all black holes have a critical internal density. An advantage of PBH cosmogony is that that it easily explains how black holes are able to increase in mass when black holes collide. If all black holes have a critical internal density, then how do they acquire more mass?

If you move bounce cosmology into this super-universe you do not eliminate bounce cosmology. Contracting universes can still occur, but what happens is you have a more realistic dynamic environment with a multitude of possibilities. Now part of a universe can contract to form a stable PBH that could still bang in the future with a collision with a similar object. In bounce cosmology gravity briefly becomes repulsive when a bounce occurs. If this is really is a PBH prior to the bounce then, the result must be a local (in the super-universe) rapid expansion of space and elementary particles that becomes a new universe. The metric expansion of space is an essential component of big bang cosmology and I assume that a bounce mechanism in a PBH would reproduce this condition. I don’t think there is any other easy way to do this if our universe was born in a larger space or multiverse. That means that our universe is an expanding remnant of a part of one of these gigantic PBH(s). The even temperatures seen in the cosmic microwave background radiation must be produced by even temperatures within our original PBH. If there was a temperature gradient inside this PBH it would show in the cosmic microwave background. For each universe to be unique then information must not only be preserved by black holes, it must be maintained through the big bang event.

I argue that black holes do not completely destroy matter because they have mass and mass can be increased in collisions with other objects. Also this possibility has to be considered because there is no equation of state for black holes. If matter is not totally destroyed by black holes, maybe it’s not be entirely created by the big bang. So maybe PBH cosmogony could solve the problem of baryon asymmetry, because in this larger super-universe there could be regions where antimatter is dominant and regions where matter is dominant. So the missing antimatter in our universe could be a reflection of matter/antimatter sorting in our region of the super-universe and the PBH that made our universe. This sorting would be expected if there was self-organizational processes at work as I propose in the super-universe.

The actual size of a PBH is unknown. It could be a very large object or it could be quite small depending on the density of matter in the core of a black hole. Until just a few years ago many scientists thought that the density in the core of a black hole was infinite in a singularity. But new theories like loop quantum gravity, allow us to consider finite densities. We can very roughly estimate the size of the original PBH with estimates of the total mass of the observable universe. Cosmologists have estimated the total mass of the universe to be 1.45×10⁵³ kg. If the mass of the observable universe is 1.45×10⁵³ kg and we assume that the observable universe is 1% of the total, then the diameter of a parent black hole that is made of the total mass of the universe is 4600 times smaller than a typical atom (.3nm), if the average density of matter is equal to the Planck density. However, if we use the density of matter in a neutron star, the parent black hole of the same mass becomes about 26 times the size of our solar system at the orbit of Neptune (30AU). In 2011 Vardanyan Trotta and Silk estimated that the whole universe was 250 times the size of the observable universe. Others like Alan Guth (1998) estimated that it is 10²³ times as big. So my one percent universe is probably undersized by a factor of at least two and a half.

For this cosmogony to work, it does not require that our universe or every universe form a PBH, but it does require that PBH(s) form in some percentage of universes by some means within the super-universe. Earlier I showed how this cosmogony could possibly produce a single residual PBH as a part of a universe. But there could be other ways that a PBH might form, particularly if the super-universe does not have dark energy. Note that dark energy in our universe does not prevent the formation of super massive black holes that can become much larger in the future. An example would be the potential collision of our own galaxy with the Andromeda galaxy in the distant future. When this happens the super massive black holes in these two galaxies will combine. Since these are not PBH there will not be a big bang when this happens.

Once a big bang event occurs, the PBH must reacquire a significant amount of mass by some means before another bang event can occur. A problem with PBH cosmogony is that there is this chicken and egg issue, because you need a big bang to create a PBH and a PBH to create a big bang. In a way this a good problem because it feels like a signature of nature. Super massive black holes and galaxies are considered to have this same issue. So maybe the super-universe had a beginning and over many eons the first generation PBH(s) formed by accretion, enabling the system to start. According to Treister, et al. (2013) there is an upper limit for black hole size where the object grows from gas, but this does not prevent growth from collisions. Limits like this may not exist in the bigger super-universe. So the very first big bang could have happened from a black hole that grew very slowly over many eons through a process of accretion of other black holes or a bounce contraction. So before the first PBH the super-universe was just a bigger version of a universe much like our own. But there is another issue with the super-universe and that is the potential for mass depletion over extended time. Any universe like ours that doesn’t eventually collapse would contribute to this depletion but maybe not all universes follow this path and maybe the super-universe compensates by contracting. If the super-universe is not contracting then PBH(s) would become less common over an extended time frame. So the proposed super-universe is definitely evolving, but this would be expected if the super-universe behaves much like a bigger version of our own universe.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

Scientists believe that a previous universe may have contracted to a point and then bounced to create a big bang and our universe. But I think that bounce cosmology is just a special case of all possible bang events that could occur when we consider quantum gravity in a multiverse environment. If the big bang is actually a quantum gravity event that is connected with a maximum density then the path that lead to that maximum density is not relevant. So when we consider all possible bang events in a multiverse (where quantum gravity functions), we need to also consider bang events from black holes that have a compressible core and are essentially equivalent to a contracted universe.

With this new paradigm a PBH replaces the initial“primeval atom” that produced the “big bang.” If this substitution can be made, then there is a maximum size to black holes and that there must be a special kind of multiverse (the super-universe) that produces these extra large black holes and other universes. The super-universe is populated by smaller stable parent black holes that occasionally collide and then bang. This must mean that there are not singularities in black holes or in the “big bang.” The proposed PBH much more massive than super massive black holes in the center of galaxies. The big bang is an event that happened as a result of a bounce density that developed in a PBH. These black holes might form in three different ways, but most likely they form at the end of inflation when gravity becomes normal. They may continue to grow after this event and contribute to dark energy through global rotation. Some, but not necessarily all, big bangs produce a smaller single PBH and new universe. So it is not essential that our larger universe has a PBH. In addition to the big bang, possible explanations for baryogenesis, and dark energy are discussed. A window inside the multiverse and event horizon of black holes is created, because we live inside the remnant of a PBH that banged in the super-universe. This creates restrictions on the structure of black holes that did not exist before. Namely black holes must be able to collect matter in a state that is not critical in terms of quantum gravity. Theories like Einstein-Cartan does not work for this type of black hole.

The initial “primeval atom” is a theoretical object where as black holes are an established aspect of our universe. In parent black hole cosmogony the reversing thought process is changed so that going back in time the universe becomes more and more dense until a parent black hole is formed that contains all the initial matter of the future universe. So if this black hole provides the adequate initial conditions, it would seem that this larger black hole would be the more likely initial object. Still the primeval atom is the established time=0 (at the big bang) concept. Parent black hole cosmogony can only work by extending space-time to before the big bang. If a parent black hole is the actual initial object then we would expect that by exploring this paradigm, we would solve some of the well known problems with big bang cosmology. This is maybe the best way to resolve the initial object question. A question that I don’t think existed before now. As it is - there is not an established explanation for the cause of the big bang or inflation. With parent black hole cosmogony, inflation and the “bang” event are unified by the same bounce event. There are other proposals to explain the big bang, like the Ekpyrotic Universe, but these cosmologies depend on unproven string theory or extra dimensions. The big bang is still the beginning of our universe but now it’s not the beginning of everything. But the final piece of the puzzle is hidden in quantum gravity. With this paradigm a new layer is added to the story of everything and how it came to be.

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