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The rapid expansion immediately after the Big Bounce explains why the present Universe at largest scales appears spatially flat, homogeneous and isotropic. As the density of the Universe decreases, the effects of torsion weaken and the Universe smoothly enters the radiation-dominated era.
The accelerated expansion of the universe is thought to have begun since the universe entered its dark-energy-dominated era roughly 5 billion years ago. [ 8 ] [ notes 1 ] Within the framework of general relativity , an accelerated expansion can be accounted for by a positive value of the cosmological constant Λ , equivalent to the presence of ...
The expansion of the universe can be understood as a consequence of an initial impulse (possibly due to inflation), which sent the contents of the universe flying apart. The mutual gravitational attraction of the matter and radiation within the universe gradually slows this expansion over time, but expansion nevertheless continues due to ...
In physical cosmology, the inflationary epoch was the period in the evolution of the early universe when, according to inflation theory, the universe underwent an extremely rapid exponential expansion. This rapid expansion increased the linear dimensions of the early universe by a factor of at least 10 26 (and possibly a much larger factor ...
The rapid expansion of space meant that elementary particles remaining from the grand unification epoch were now distributed very thinly across the universe. However, the huge potential energy of the inflaton field was released at the end of the inflationary epoch, as the inflaton field decayed into other particles, known as "reheating".
The inflaton field is a hypothetical scalar field which is conjectured to have driven cosmic inflation in the very early universe. [1] [2] [3] The field, originally postulated by Alan Guth, [1] provides a mechanism by which a period of rapid expansion from 10 −35 to 10 −34 seconds after the initial expansion can be generated, forming a universe not inconsistent with observed spatial ...
The Big Bang is a physical theory that describes how the universe expanded from an initial state of high density and temperature. [1] The notion of an expanding universe was first scientifically originated by physicist Alexander Friedmann in 1922 with the mathematical derivation of the Friedmann equations.
[2]: 62, [3]: 61 The most commonly accepted solution among cosmologists is cosmic inflation, the idea that the universe went through a brief period of extremely rapid expansion in the first fraction of a second after the Big Bang; along with the monopole problem and the horizon problem, the flatness problem is one of the three primary ...