Black Holes Might Solve The Baryon Asymmetry Problem
30 year old mystery might be solved!
The Creation of Black Holes Might be the Solution to a Thirty Year Old Physics Mystery.
The world around us is made of matter particles, such as protons, neutrons, and electrons. But, there is also antimatter, exactly the same as matter, except with an opposite charge. For example, an electron has a negative charge, so an anti-electron, or positron, has a positive charge.
When the big bang happened, during the first three seconds the conditions were so hot and full of energy that when two photons would collide they would produce one matter and one antimatter particle*, thus creating equal amounts of matter and antimatter, and as they would come in contact they would annihilate, becoming just energy.
Now, when this was discovered, about thirty years ago, this puzzled physicists (and still does) because if there were equal amounts of matter and antimatter, then how come we have a universe made up of matter, rather than a desolate and empty vacuum?
The Baryon Asymmetry Problem
The thing is that this suggests that these exact opposites of matter and antimatter are actually different in some way other than charge, but this does not match at all with our current standard model of physics.
You see, there are three basic "rules" of CPT, standing for Charge, Parity, and Time. These basically say that you could flip or reverse charge, parity, or time, and nothing would be different.
- If you reversed charge, everything would still be the same, a positive electron would orbit a negative nucleus, and nothing would change.
- If you reversed all spatial coordinates, simply put, left is right and right is left, like looking in a mirror universe, nothing would change and seem the same, which would be parity.
- Finally, we have time, which at first seems to make no sense. You can't unbreak a glass, or uncook an egg, but in the world of fundamental particles everything is reversible, and you would not be able to tell if time is going back or forwards.
The idea in this is that you would not be able to tell if you are in the mirror universe or not, and most of our current physics is based off of this concept of CPT.
But, the Baryon Asymmetry Problem suggests that this is not true, and that we would be able to tell which universe we are in, which means that our understanding of physics itself breaks down. This is why scientists are trying to find how they are different, to solve the mystery.
The Solution
The main solution to this problem without rewriting physics gravity. Since gravity does not obey much of our physics model, if there is a difference in the way gravity affects antimatter then this would explain why there was this asymmetry at the birth of the universe, without making us rewrite our entire physics model, though this has not been fully proven as of yet.
Where The Black Holes Come In**
A more recently proposed solution is that when the early universe was being formed, in those first three seconds of extreme conditions, something extreme happened, and tiny black holes formed for very short amounts of time, releasing shockwaves which may have unbalanced the matter and antimatter, setting the stage for matter to rule the universe.
Of course though, physics being wrong is not necessarily bad, in fact many find it an exciting possibility, as it means that there is much, much more to discover yet!
“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery each day. - Albert Einstein
Fully produced by me, AI only used for research.
*In about the first one millionth of a second, protons and antiprotons were made, but as it cooled a bit electrons and positrons were produced.
** For more details, please visit: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/exploding-black-holes-antimatter
