Cosmos may be 'inherently unstable'

[dipsydoodle]

Scientists say they may be able to determine the eventual fate of the cosmos as they probe the properties of the Higgs boson.

A concept known as vacuum instability could result, billions of years from now, in a new universe opening up in the present one and replacing it.

It all depends on some precise numbers related to the Higgs that researchers are currently trying to pin down.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21499765

[Ghost Dog]

1. Yeah. So there'll be a trigger...

... "If you use all the physics we know now, and you do this straightforward calculation... What happens is you get just a quantum fluctuation that makes a tiny bubble of the vacuum the Universe really wants to be in. And because it's a lower-energy state, this bubble will then expand, basically at the speed of light, and sweep everything before it," the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory theoretician told BBC News...

... If the calculation on vacuum instability stands up, it will revive an old idea that the Big Bang Universe we observe today is just the latest version in a permanent cycle of events...

/... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21499765

[newfie11]

3. Fascinating Nt

[Ghost Dog]

5. Yeah. And what's more, since we're talking quantum math, you know,

eye of the beholder, then, just because you and I are just 'looking' at this idea that might just make it so.

[newfie11]

6. This is so far above my tiny brain

But I love this stuff.

[DreamGypsy]

7. I hypothesize the key part of the explanation...

...is "If you use all the physics we know now", after what, 6 months with a Higgs candidate to work on.

Before we run screaming into the streets, we should probably allow them to work on the details. After all, if the standard model with Higgs is correct, then the universe has already had ~14 billion years for the peculiar quantum fluctuation to occur and sweep us into the dustbin. No evidence of that. The fact that we now suspect we know the mass of the Higgs doesn't change the probability of such a fluctuation occurring.

As the article notes:

Before we knew, the Higgs could have been any mass over a very wide range. And what's amazing to me is that out of all those possible masses from 114 to several hundred GeV, it's landed at 126-ish where it's right on the critical line, and now we have to measure it more precisely to find the fate of the Universe," he said.

<snip>

Scientists have still to review about a third of the collision data in their possession. But they will likely need much more information to close the uncertainties that remain in the measurement of the Higgs' mass and its other properties.

Indeed, until they do so, they are reluctant to definitively crown the boson, preferring often to say just that they have found a "Higgs-like" particle.

Whew! Guess I'll be able to sleep tonight.

[XemaSab]

2. I always feel inherently unstable when I drink cosmos

[Ptah]

4. Heh