In 2012, at the Large Hadron Collider, the mass of the "God particle" - the Higgs boson was determined. Its value turned out to be such that it is capable of overturning all the well-established ideas about the "strength" of our world - the end of the Universe can come at any moment, and the source of the death of the Universe can appear at any point.
Traditionally, for the end of the Universe, scientists have “proposed” three main scenarios. And they were all tied to the properties of dark energy - a hypothetical phenomenon through which modern physics explains why our universe is expanding with acceleration.
The first scenario for the end of the universe is scattering and heat death. If the accelerated expansion of our Universe continues at approximately the current rate, then all galaxies outside our Supercluster will go beyond the event horizon (their relative speed will exceed the speed of light). Accordingly, the Universe available to us will decrease to the size of our Galaxy with its neighbors, which will gradually “cool down” to a state of thermal death: star formation will stop, stars will burn out, black holes will evaporate, an era of eternal darkness will come … All this will become relevant in about a trillion years and beyond. At the same time, it is worth remembering that life on Earth will become impossible “only” after a billion years …
The second scenario for the end of the universe is the Big Rip. The Big Rip theory assumes that the force of the impact of dark energy is such that the rate of expansion of our Universe will increase more and more, and the end of the Universe will come in about 22 billion years. This will happen due to the fact that as the expansion rate increases, the distance to the event horizon will decrease more and more until all the objects and bodies that make up the Universe, including atoms and subatomic particles …
will be)…
The third scenario for the end of the Universe is the Big Compression If dark energy is not constant and does not increase, and from a certain point in the evolution of the Universe begins to weaken, then we can expect a Big Compression. This scenario of the end of the Universe describes a situation when, under the influence of gravitational forces, the Universe is pulled into one point.
Until the moment when the Universe will not decrease in relation to the existing one by 100 times, everything will be the same, but then the Universe will become like one large galaxy. The temperature of the relict background will reach 274K and ice on earth-like planets will begin to melt, wherever it is. Further compression will lead to the fact that the radiation of the relict background will eclipse even the central star of the planetary system, burning out the last sprouts of life on the planets. And soon after that, the stars and planets themselves will evaporate or be torn to pieces. Further, the state of the Universe will be similar to what it was in the first moments of its inception: atoms decay into atomic nuclei and electrons, radiation begins to dominate, then atomic nuclei begin to decay into protons and neutrons, then protons and neutrons themselves decay into separate quarks … great unification. In this moment,as in the moment of the Big Bang, the laws of physics known to us cease to work, and the further fate of the Universe cannot be predicted …
Galaxies contracting at one point (computer simulation). If the currently observed accelerated expansion of the Universe stops and is replaced by compression, then, given the present size of the Universe, billions of years will still pass before the final of the Great Compression.
Promotional video:
These are the traditional scenarios for the end of the universe. But now, after determining the mass of a new elementary particle, which, most likely, is the Higgs boson, not only a new scenario of the death of our world has been calculated, but its fundamental fragility has also been substantiated in a new way.
The Higgs boson is a particle that, in the framework of the Standard Model, is responsible for the mass of elementary particles. Its existence was predicted in 1964. But only after the construction of the most expensive scientific instrument in the history of mankind (the Large Hadron Collider) was the particle, which most likely it is, was “caught”.
And most importantly, the boson mass was determined, which turned out to be equal to 125-126 GeV. It was this value that allowed theoretical physicist Joseph Likken to more specifically approach the new theory of the death of the Universe.
The point is that the given value of the Higgs boson mass allows the existence of a metastable “false vacuum”. Those. the vacuum in our Universe does not have a minimum energy, but is only in a state with a local minimum of energy, and at any moment it can slide into a state of “true vacuum”.
Those. at any moment of time in any part of the Universe, a quantum fluctuation is possible, as a result of which a minimal “bubble” of vacuum will give rise to a new Universe - because of its lower energy level, it will absorb everything around it, expanding at the speed of light. This event will be the beginning of the end of our Universe.
On the other hand, we can talk not about the end of the history of the Universe, but about the replacement of one generation of the Universe with another. However, the new Universe born will be radically different from the old one - therefore it will be such a change of generations when a child devours its parent …
Joseph Likken, in his speech, reassured the audience that since the Universe has already existed for 13.75 billion years, it means that it is stable enough to exist for a very long time, and in addition, the expansion of the "bubble" of the new Universe will occur at the highest possible speed for transmitting information - i.e. We will not have time to get scared or prepare for it - the end of the Universe will happen absolutely imperceptibly for all living things.
This is another scenario for the death of the universe. It is curious, first of all, because it gives us a chance to once again think about the fragility of all things, incl. The universe as a whole. The fact that the world is such that the existence of both it and us in it is a real miracle (see also: Anthropic principle, Fine tuning of the Universe) … Check out the specific calculations of J.