III. Ecosmos: A Revolutionary Fertile, Habitable, Solar-Bioplanet, Incubator Lifescape

1. Quantum Cosmology Theoretic Unity

Coley, Alan and George Ellis. Theoretical Cosmology. Classial and Quantum Gravity. 37/1, 2020. Dalhousie University and University of Cape Town physicists inaugurate the 2020s decade with a 50 page survey the past, present and future of salient mathematical, computational, spatial form, temporal course, philosophical aspects. Staying within our own universe, black holes, gravitational waves, singularities, dark energy, nonlinearities, string inflation and more are considered. But again it would seem that there must be some innate, eternal cosmic purpose for valiant participatory human beings whom altogether are capable of observing, quantifying, recording such depths and reaches.

Conzinu, Pedro, et al. Primordial Black Holes from Pre-Big Bang Inflation. Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics. August, 2020. We enter this posting by University of Pisa and Bari physicists as an instance of worldwide online collaborations which are now able to explore, hypothesize and quantify, so it seems, across any spatial and temporal expanse. In 2020 regard, whom might we microcosmic collaborative peoples altogether be to span and learn about such universal breadth and depth? See also, for example, The Self-Tuning of the Cosmological Constant at arXiv:2001.05510. By a philoSophia view, could it be imagined that an ecosmic genesis is trying to self-recognize and pass its operational knowledge onto our Earthkinder agency for a future cocreativity.

We discuss the possibility of producing a significant fraction of dark matter in the form of primordial black holes in the context of the pre-big bang inflationary scenario. We take into account, to this purpose, the enhancement of curvature perturbations possibly induced by a variation of the sound-speed parameter during the string phase of high-curvature inflation. After imposing observational constraints, we find that the considered class of models is compatible with the production of a large amount of primordial black holes in the mass range relevant to dark matter. (Abstract)

Let us finally recall that, in the string cosmology scenario that we have considered, the collapse of primordial inhomogeneities leading to PBH formation can be associated with perturbation modes re-entering the horizon either in the radiation- or in the axion-dominated regime of post-inflationary evolution. In the second case, corresponding to a dust-dominated epoch, it turns out that the spectral constraints determining a significant PBH production might be somewhat relaxed with respect to the one used in this paper. (23)

Cui, Weiguang, et al. The Large Scale Environment from Cosmological Simulations II. The Redshift Evolution and Distributions of Baryons. arXiv:1902.09522. We cite this entry by a thirteen member team with postings in Spain, Australia, Germany, France, China, South Africa, and the UK including Noam Libeskind as an example of globalwise abilities to scan, explore, quantify, and describe, so it seems, every breadth and depth of an infinite, temporally developmental, multiUniVerse. As this work proceeds, a library of cosmos repository then accrues. See also by this extended group The Three Hundred Project: A Large Catalogue of Galactic Clusters (1809.04622), Partitioning the Universe into Gravitational Basins Using the Cosmic Velocity Field (1907.06555), The Quasi-Linear Nearby Universe (1807.03724), and The Large Scale Environment from Cosmological Simulations I: The Baryonic Cosmic Web (1708.02302). A popular graphic article about these findings is Cosmic Mariners by Noam Libeskind and Yehuda Hoffman in Sky & Telescope for October 2019.

Following Cui et al (1708.02302) on the classification of large-scale environments (LSE) at z = 0, we push our analysis to higher redshifts and study the evolution of LSE and the baryon distributions in them. Our aim is to investigate how baryons affect the LSE as a function of redshift. We validate the conclusion of Cui 2017 that the gas web is an unbiased tracer of total matter -- even better at high redshifts. By separating the whole warm-hot intergalactic medium WHIM gas mass into the four large-scale environments (i.e. voids, sheets, filaments, and knots), we find that about half of the WHIM gas is located in filaments. (Abstract excerpt)

Curtin, David and Raman Sundrum. Hidden Worlds of Fundamental Particles. Physics Today. June, 2017. University of Maryland physicists write an illustrated entry to frontier studies of light and dark cosmic materiality such as Higgs bosons, big bang nucleosynthesis, and WIMP baryogenesis as they stretch the Standard Model. See also however, Yearning for New Physics at CERN in a Post-Higgs Way by Denis Overbye in the New York Times for June 20, 2017 about a lacunae of recent progress.

Cyr-Racine, Francis-Yan, et al. ETHOS – An Effective Theory of Structure Formation: From Dark Particle Physics to the Matter Distribution of the Universe. arXiv:1512.05344. As the Abstract details, a team from Harvard, CalTech, IAS Princeton, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Oslo, MIT, and the Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies considers how to quantify the space, time, and matter of the whole celestial cosmos. Surely a composite human project, this worldwise retrospective self-description must be as cosmological a phenomenon, a humanverse, as any quark or galaxy. And by our august role, there really ought to be a greater creative genesis reality waiting to be found.

We formulate an effective theory of structure formation (ETHOS) that enables cosmological structure formation to be computed in almost any microphysical model of dark matter physics. This framework maps the detailed microphysical theories of particle dark matter interactions into the physical effective parameters that shape the linear matter power spectrum and the self-interaction transfer cross section of non-relativistic dark matter. These are the input to structure formation simulations, which follow the evolution of the cosmological and galactic dark matter distributions. Models with similar effective parameters in ETHOS but with different dark particle physics would nevertheless result in similar dark matter distributions. We present a general method to map an ultraviolet complete or effective field theory of low energy dark matter physics into parameters that affect the linear matter power spectrum and carry out this mapping for several representative particle models. We further propose a simple but useful choice for characterizing the dark matter self-interaction transfer cross section that parametrizes self-scattering in structure formation simulations. Taken together, these effective parameters in ETHOS allow the classification of dark matter theories according to their structure formation properties rather than their intrinsic particle properties, paving the way for future simulations to span the space of viable dark matter physics relevant for structure formation. (Abstract)

De Haro, Sebastian, et al. Forty Years of String Theory. Foundations of Physics. 43/1, 2013. With coauthors Dennis Dicks, Gerard ’t Hooft, and Erik Verlinde, an introduction to a retrospective issue on this fraught field, which after four decades has not fulfilled any promise. Carlo Rovelli, Lee Smolin (search) and Nobel laureate ‘t Hooft have serious problems. Other papers seem to make excuses or tease out some threads. A main founder, Leonard Susskind (search), says it was a good ride but has mostly lost its way. But more worrisome is that, however shaky, with its implied multiverse the scheme has taken over the physics mindset to the deficit of many valid alternative approaches.

Today, string theory is a mature field that has produced an unprecedented amount of work and new ideas in theoretical physics. Yet string theory is neither a complete theory nor free from criticisms, as the present special issue reflects. Among the shortcomings mentioned by our authors, there are the lack of directly testable experimental predictions that would signal ‘string physics’. Another, and in some respects more disturbing problem, is that a fundamental formulation of string theory is not yet known—not only in the mathematical way or rigor, but even in the physical sense of finding the ‘fundamental variables’ of the theory. (2)

Finally, some critics have pointed out that sociological issues are also at stake in the way string theorists are doing science: in this view, string theory monopolizes the best jobs in the academic career market, so that young talented researchers have no choice but following the trends if they want to have a chance of an academic career. (2)

De Hero, Jaume, et al.. Finite-time cosmological singularities and the possible fate of the Universe. Physics Reports. Vol.1034, September, 2023. Barcelona Polytechnic, Nagoya University, Japan and Aristotle University, Greece astrophysicists post a 136 page, 889 reference document with ten chapters such as Cosmological Finite Time Singularities in Modified Gravity and in Interacting Multifluid Cosmology. Since the Quantum Cosmology view first came about in the 1980s to express an integral unity of these widest realms, by 2023 a the endeavor, as attested here, has come to span such temporal and spatial infinities.

Singularities in any physical theory are either indicators of an underlying fundamental theory, or indicate a change in the description of the physical reality. In the case of black holes and the Big Bang, the singularity indicates that the physics is no longer due to the classical gravity theory but some quantum version of gravity is needed. A variety of finite-time future singularities, such as, Big Rip, sudden, Big Freeze, and so on, are allowed in various class of cosmological models. The occurrence of these finite-time singularities has been investigated via variety of dark energy, modified gravity, and other cosmological theories. (Excerpt)

There are many questions that future scientists should address. Was spacetime itself created along with matter? Is spacetime evolving with matter or it evolves independently? Is spacetime another manifestation of matter or are these independent? A singularity in spacetime means geodesics incompleteness and the latter indicates our inability to describe physics. This might indicate the change in the topology of the Universe occurring at the time instance of the finite-time future singularity. With this review we provided a comprehensive overview of all the distinct theories associated with the finite-time singularities, which may potentially yield indications of an underlying fundamental quantum theory. (110)

De Ronde, Christian. Quantum Theory Needs No “Interpretation” but “Theoretical Formal-Conceptual Unity.”. arXiv:2008. 00321. We cite this entry by a University of Buenos Aires and Free University of Brussels philosophical physicist to note a deepest issue and quandary that daunts this field of study. Since the late 20th century, an “anti-Realist” school, due much to its arcane opacity, contends that nothing more actually exists on its own. De Ronde then refers to recent writings by David Deutsch (search), along with those of Adan Cabello (this eprint site) for novel views by this flawed denial can be set aside for an intelligible phenomenal presence.

In regard, Lee Smolin often devotes half of a book (e.g., Time Reborn) to a similar sorting out so as to endorse the “Realism” opposite. And in 1990 I heard John Bell in person ask at a seminar: What does it mean that there is something quantum, and we are here? So this ultimate question of to be or not to be, nothing more or everything else, still begs to be resolved. As this website seeks to report and document, into 2022 by virtue of am Earthropic sapience, a positive, natural genesis, answer going forward may finally be affirmed.

Ellis, George F. R. Does the Multiverse Really Exist? Scientific American. August, 2011. The University of Cape Town philosophical cosmologist blows the whistle on physics’ theoretical tangent that implies, based on an eleven dimension string scheme, an infinity of universes each with their own vicarious parameters and laws, hostile to people. This scenario, as it takes leave of any provable basis, demeans humans, life, earth and cosmos, lost in sterile, pointless space. While other universes may conceivably exist, the same testable laws and phenomena should hold everywhere. If you think this is not a problem, peruse the July 23, 2011 New Scientist, which is an “Existential Issue” wherein multiverse fantasies and collider machines confirm the “unlikely” probability of earth life as “absolutely miniscule,” with a “near-certainty that you are a zombie.” Hence this article and this website.

Ellis, George, et al. Current Observations with a Decaying Cosmological Constant Allow for Chaotic Cyclic Cosmology. arXiv:1511.03076. As the quote conveys, University of Cape Town and Oxford University astrophysicists push the limits of conjecture, which shows how theories are much in abeyance, but often distinguished by complex systems phenomena.

Cosmology, being the study of the large scale universe, confronts questions relevant to the very core of existence. As a serious scientific field for only a century, the field of cosmology has advanced rapidly to become a precision science. The age old belief in a static universe has been dislodged by a confrontation with data which tells us that the universe is not only evolving and expanding, but presently accelerating in its expansion. On the largest scales, the universe appears isotropic and homogeneous, respecting the cosmological principle. The observations point to a dynamic universe that has evolved through different phases, each characterised by the domination of a different matter type. The best explanation to date is given by a phase of inflation in the early universe, lasting at least 60 e-folds, followed successively by a radiation phase, a matter dominated phase, and a dark energy dominated phase at the present time. (1) In this paper, we will show that a cyclical universe is reasonable from a dynamical systems perspective, and requires in addition to standard cosmological assumptions, only two conditions; (i) the spatial sections must have positive spatial curvature, and (ii) the late time effective cosmological \constant" must decay fast enough as a function of the scale factor. (1)

Erhard, Manuel, et al. Advances in High Dimensional Quantum Entanglement. 1911.10006. University of Vienna Center for Quantum Science polyphysicists ME, Mario Krenn and Anton Zeilinger (search) provide another avocation that physical studies are in the midst of a second, 21st century reinvention of what constitutes this fundamental realm. In addition to radical reconceptions akin to other natural and social stages, as if opening a new frontier these foundational abilities will lead to all sorts of novel utilizations. The article’s 217 references are a good resource going forward.

Since its discovery in the last century, quantum entanglement has challenged some of our most cherished classical views, such as locality and reality. Today, the second quantum revolution is in full swing and promises to revolutionize areas such as computation, communication, and imaging. Here, we review conceptual and experimental advances in complex entangled systems involving many multilevel quantum particles. We also show how academic curiosity and fundamental research has led to new technological applications such as a quantum internet or teleportation of all information stored in a quantum system. (Abstract excerpt)

If the system size in terms of number and dimensionality grows to extensive numbers, exotic phenomena arise. Examples are superconductivity, super-fluids or Bose-Einstein condensates. These systems still pose significant theoretical as well as experimental challenges. A deeper understanding of these extremely large and highly correlated quantum systems might very well reveal new physics. (3)

Ferris, Timothy. The Whole Shebang. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997. A science writer takes a whirlwind tour of humankind’s encounter with an expanding galactic and cosmic evolution.

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