PHYS 180 Lecture Notes - Lecture 22: Grand Unified Theory, Big Bang, Planck Units
Document Summary
All forces may have been unified, we do not know. We do not have a theory that describes the conditions in this era: gut era (grad unified theory. Two forces are thought to have operated during the gyt era: gravity and the gut force. The temperature was between 10^-43 and 10^-38. This era ended when strong electroweak forces decoupledwhich was possibly accompanied by a sdramatic instant of expansion called inflation: eelectroweak era. Elementary particles appeared spontaneously from energy, but also transformed rapidly back into energy. This era ended when electrostatic and wrak forces decoupled. Energy was transformed to matter and matter to energy through particle creation and particle annihilation: particle era. Elementary particles filled the universe: quarks combined to make protons and antiprotons. The amount of matter and antimatter was nearly equal. About 1 extra protonfor every 10^9 proton-antiproton pairs. This inequality was very important: era from nucleosynthesis. This beings when matter annihilates remaining antimatter (wasn"t this already happening?)
