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

5. ExoUniverse Studies: Detectable Presence, Conceptual Features

Tamm, Martin. The Thermodynamical Arrow and the Historical Arrow. Entropy. Online August, 2017. The University of Stockholm mathematician advances this project by way of reviewing many past studies over the decades by Ilya Prigogine, David Layzer, Mario Castagnino and others within a nascent 2010s scenario of a Combinatorial Multiverse.

In this paper, the relationship between the thermodynamic and historical arrows of time is studied. In the context of a simple combinatorial model, their definitions are made more precise and in particular strong versions (which are not compatible with time symmetric microscopic laws) and weak versions (which can be compatible with time symmetric microscopic laws) are given. This is part of a larger project that aims to explain the arrows as consequences of a common time symmetric principle in the set of all possible universes. However, even if we accept that both arrows may have the same origin, this does not imply that they are equivalent, and it is argued that there can be situations where one arrow may be well-defined but the other is not. (Abstract)

Terasawa, Ryo, et al. Separate universe approach to evaluate nonlinear matter power spectrum for non-flat ΛCDM model. arXiv:2205.10339. We cite this entry by four Japanese cosmologists as an example of how the latest Earthuman science is able to extend its compass to myriad other cosmoses. See also Likelihood Criteria for the Universe by Ezequiel Lopez-Rubio at 2206.0097 for another take.

The spatial curvature of the universe is a fundamental quality that could give a link to its early physics. We develop a method to compute the nonlinear matter power spectrum for "non-flat" ΛCDM models using the separate universe (SU) ansatz whence the curvature of structure formation is equivalent to that of long-wavelength density fluctuation. We find that the emulators, those built for flat cosmologies such as EuclidEmulator, can predict the non-flat P(k) with least degradation. (Excerpt)

In physics and mathematics, an ansatz is an educated guess or an additional assumption made to help solve a problem, and which may later be verified to be part of the solution by its results.

Wainwright, Carroll, et al. Simulating the Universe(s): From Cosmic Bubble Collisions to Cosmological Observables with Numerical Relativity. Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics. 03/030, 2014. As the title extols, physicists from UC, Santa Cruz, Perimeter Institute, University College London, and Long Island University, including Hiranya Peiris and Anthony Aguirre, contribute to our collective transformation of cosmos into consciousness. Might we all ask at some point what is the human phenomenon, why can thought span and learn such vistas, what great discovery does the universe want us to make?

The theory of eternal inflation in an inflation potential with multiple vacua predicts that our universe is one of many bubble universes nucleating and growing inside an ever-expanding false vacuum. The collision of our bubble with another could provide an important observational signature to test this scenario. We develop and implement an algorithm for accurately computing the cosmological observables arising from bubble collisions directly from the Lagrangian of a single scalar field. We first simulate the collision spacetime by solving Einstein's equations, starting from nucleation and ending at reheating. We then calculate the comoving curvature perturbation in an open Friedmann-Robertson-Walker universe, which is used to determine the temperature anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background radiation. We characterize observational predictions by computing the probability distributions over four phenomenological parameters which capture these intrinsic and model uncertainties. This represents the first fully-relativistic set of predictions from an ensemble of scalar field models giving rise to eternal inflation, yielding significant differences from previous non-relativistic approximations. (Abstract excerpts)

Wilczek, Frank. Multiversality. Classical and Quantum Gravity. 30/193001, 2013. Also posted at arXiv:1307.7376. The MIT physicist and 2004 Nobel laureate offers a succinct overview of an evident, mathematically legible, realm of myriad variable cosmoses. The main theoretical exercise involves an Inflationary Axion Cosmology, not easily defined, which Wilczek and colleagues such as Max Tegmark have conjured for some years. See their arXiv:0807.1726 for a review. His latest book, A Beautiful Question: Finding Nature’s Deep Design (2015), imagines how such an intrinsic presence across this raiment might be fruitfully discerned.

Valid ideas that physical reality is vastly larger than human perception of it, and that the perceived part may not be representative of the whole, exist on many levels and have a long history. After a brief general inventory of those ideas and their implications, I consider the cosmological "multiverse" much discussed in recent scientific literature. I review its theoretical and (broadly) empirical motivations, and its disruptive implications for the traditional program of fundamental physics. I discuss the inflationary axion cosmology, which provides an example where firmly rooted, plausible ideas from microphysics lead to a well-characterized "mini-multiverse" scenario, with testable phenomenological consequences. (Abstract)

Wood, Charlie. Pondering the Bits that Build Space-Time and Brains. Quanta. April 20, 2022. The entry is at once a lifetime profile of the University of Pennsylvania polyphysicst VijaY Balasubramanain, and a wide survey of theoretical frontier imaginations. In addition, he directs a second research group at Penn that studies how the world’s physical features may have sculpted the brain via information and computation as a natural language. For examples of his current, collegial work see Entanglement between Two Gravitating Universes at arXiv:2104.13383 and See Spin Structures and Baby Universes at 2007.04333. Into the 2020s, it seems to be newly accessible to consider, quantify and play with whole cosmoses.

In 1989, the renowned physicist John Wheeler proposed a radical new way to think about the universe. Quantum particles may shape-shift and disappear, but we can always count on information. Wheeler speculated that bits of information could be the fundamental ingredient of reality. Every physical quantity, every it, derives an ultimate significance from bits, binary yes-or-no indications, he wrote in an essay envisioning an “it from bit” cosmos. (quote)

Wood, Charlie. Why This Universe? A New Calculation Suggest Our Cosmos is Typicall. Quanta. November 17,, 2022. A science writer surveys the latest conjectures about what kind of spatial and temporal environs we Earthlings may actually find ourselves. As a gloss, our scientific scenario this far may be legitimate due to a new array of physical and energetic features. Latham Boyle, Perimeter Institute and Neil Turok, its once director and now at the University of Edinburgh post novel theoretical reasons, which cast back to the 1970s, as to why this is the phenomenal case. See, for example, their Thermodynamic Solution of the Homogeneity, Isotropy and Flatness Puzzles. (arXiv:2210.01142) and The Big Bang as a Mirror: A Solution of the Strong CP Problem (2208.10396) papers.

Two physicists have calculated that the universe has a higher entropy — and is therefore more likely — than alternative possible universes. The calculation is “an answer to a question that is yet to be fully understood.” The properties of our universe — smooth, flat, just a pinch of dark energy — are what we should expect to see, according to a new calculation.

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