Physicists have reproduced a pattern resembling the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation in a laboratory simulation of the Big Bang, using ultracold cesium atoms in a vacuum chamber at the University of Chicago.
“This is the first time an experiment like this has simulated the evolution of structure in the early universe,” said Cheng Chin, a professor at the University of Chicago.
“This is the first time an experiment like this has simulated the evolution of structure in the early universe,” said Cheng Chin, a professor at the University of Chicago.
The CMB is the echo of the Big Bang. Extensive measurements of the CMB came from the orbiting Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) in the 1990s and later from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) and various ground-based observatories, including the University-of-Chicago-led South Pole Telescope collaboration. These tools have provided cosmologists with a snapshot of how the universe appeared approximately 380,000 years following the Big Bang, which marked the beginning of the universe.
The sudden expansion of the universe during its inflationary period created ripples in space-time in the echo of the Big Bang. One can think of the Big Bang, in oversimplified terms, as an explosion [sic: seed] that generated sound, Chin said. The sound waves began interfering with each other, creating complicated patterns. “That’s the origin of complexity we see in the universe,” he said.
