The Early Universe

The best approach to understanding the early Universe is to start now and
work backwards. This leaves the uncertainty about what happened in the
beginning until the end.

If we consider the ratio

Ωrel 4.17 × 10−5 1

= 2
,
Ωnon − rel Ω0h a

we can compute the relative amounts of relativistic and non-relativistic

matter for any given size of the Universe. e.g. when decoupling happened
the Universe was 1/1000th of its current size and so the ratio at decoupling
was
Ωrel 0.04
= ,
Ωnon − rel Ω0h2
Unless the combination Ω0h2 is very small there will be much more non-
relativistic matter than relativistic matter at decoupling; the Universe is said

1
to be matter dominated. When

1
a = aeq = 2
,
24, 000Ω0h

the densities are the same. At even earlier times the relativistic particles
would dominate the Universe.

We can now calculate the temperature versus time history of the Universe
assuming an instantaneous transitions from radiation dominated to dust
dominated. Since T ∝ 1/a and we know how a behaves in those regimes
we have for the dust dominated case;
µ 17
¶2/3
T 3 × 10 sec
=
2.73K t

which holds for

2.73K
T < Teq = = 66, 000Ω0h2K
aeq

2
The time of matter-radiation equality is then given by
−3/2 −3 −3/2 −3
teq = 8 × 1010Ω0 h sec ≈ 2500Ω0 h years.

As decoupling happened after the matter radiation equality time we can use
the temperature at decoupling, Tdec ≈ 3000K to get

tdec ≈ 1013sec = 300, 000years

At temperatures above Teq, radiation dominates and the temperature time

relation becomes µ ¶1/2
T teq
=
Teq t
Substituting in for Teq and teq, and throwing away a weak dependence on
Ω0 and h gives
µ ¶1/2
1sec T kB T
= =
t 2 × 1010K 2MeV
This means that when the Universe was 1 second old the temperature would
have been about 2 × 1010K, giving a typical particle energy of 2 MeV.

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We can now discuss in more detail the (reverse) evolution of the Universe.

The first important event we come to as the Universe cools is decoupling at

about T ≈ 3000K, and 300,000 years after the big-bang. At this time the
Universe was matter dominated, and although there were many photons, the
energy in the Universe resides in the non-relativistic matter. A little earlier
the radiation would become the dominant constituent when the temperature
was around T ≈ 66, 000Ω0h2K

At earlier times the Universe was hotter, but not much changes until the
temperature reached T ≈ 2 × 1010K. These temperatures give particles
about the same energy as nuclear binding energies and so they can split
nuclei and separate the protons and neutrons. This happens at times earlier
than one second. So in the first second of the Universes existence there
were no nuclei only a sea of neutrons and protons.

Moving even further back and things get less clear. It is believed that at
about T ≈ 2 × 1012K The protons and neutrons no longer maintained their
individual identity and instead their quarks formed a sort of quark plasma.

4
The highest particle energies which we have achieved in Earth are about
100GeV which corresponds to an effective temperature of T ≈ 2 × 1015K.
So this is the highest energy at which we have any direct experimental
experience. This temperature was reached only 10−10 seconds after the Big
Bang. Describing what happened at earlier times involves basically educated
speculation.

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 Light-dust equality Decoupling Today
0
10
-3
10
a

-6
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10
27
10
Density

18
10
9
10
0
10
9
10
T (K)

6
10
3
10
0
10 0 3 6 9 12 15 18
10 10 10 10 10 10 10
Time (sec)
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