Big Bang Left a Cold Spot: Is it a "Cosmic Defect?"

Scientists from the University of Cambridge and Spain's Institute of Physics of Cantabria (IFCA) report on their analysis of a mysterious cold spot in the cosmic microwave background of the Universe.

Cold spots in the Universe are areas of "texture" in the cosmic microwave background (CMB). The CMB is the microwave that is left over reverberating throughout the Universe as a result of the initial cataclysmic event resulting in the formation of the particles that have coalesced to become the Universe we know; some call this event the Big Bang.

Texture in the Universe is a result of the behavior of elemental particles (quarks, leptons, gauge bosons) during the phase of cooling off following the very, very hot phase immediately following the bang. During this cooling phase, elementary particles experienced phase transitioning analogous to the phase transitioning we see when, for example, water turns to ice.

During any phase transition for any element, there are some molecules that misalign during the settling of the phase transition. This misalignment creates non-uniform spots (like a random strand of hair going astray). It is these non-uniform spots that are called textures.

Cold spots in the vacuum of the Universe are theorized to be areas where the elementary particles at the beginning of the Universe became misaligned during the cooling phase transitioning and created textured spots in the Universe.

Professor Neil Turok of Cambridge's Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics was the first to demonstrate how textures in the Universe came to be formed. These defects in the structure of the Universe's vacuum may be very hot or very cold. A team of researchers at IFCA found this cold spot in the South Galactic Hemisphere in 2004. Textures are but one type of form these universal vacuum defects may take.

The areas of enormous hot and cold temperatures are thought to be caused by the collapse and unwinding of the elementary particles comprising the textures. The unwinding of the texture proceeds at progressively larger rates. This process creates vast energy of great intensity and the potential for gravitational pull.

Professor Turok and Marcos Cruz, Dr. Patricio Vielva and Professor Enrique Martínez-González with the IFCA, investigated many possible solutions to the question of what the cold spot is due to, including contamination form our own galaxy or the affect of galaxies neighboring the cold spot scattering cosmic microwave background radiation.

Turok used the Cambridge supercomputer to minutely examine the properties of the cold spot and compare them to the theoretical properties of textures. Dr. Mike Hobson of the Astrophysics Group at Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory examined the probabilities of the cold spot being something other than a defect in the structure of the Universe's vacuum.

Even though all researchers agree that the probabilities are ranked toward the cold spot being the first know texture, it is generally agreed that there is no definitive evidence as yet and the cold spot has not yet been satisfactorily explained.

Turok does state, "There are a number of follow-up tests which can be made with future data. It's a very testable hypothesis and we will know the answer within the next decade."

Hobson adds, "Although the current data are not yet compelling, we suggest future observations that should be able to test our hypothesis definitively. If the cold spot is indeed proven to be a texture it will completely change our view of how the universe evolved following the Big Bang."

"Scientists discover possible cosmic defect, remnant from Big Bang: Existence of cosmic defects, called textures, proposed over a decade ago," University of Cambridge.