Scientists say they may be able to determine the eventual fate of the cosmos
as they probe the properties of the Higgs boson.
A concept known as vacuum instability could result, billions of years from
now, in a new universe opening up in the present one and replacing it.
It all depends on some precise numbers related to the Higgs that researchers
are currently trying to pin down.
Hints of the particle were first seen at the Large Hadron Collider last year.
Associated with an energy field that pervades all space, the boson helps
explain the existence of mass in the cosmos. In other words, it underpins the
workings of all the matter we see around us.
Since detecting the particle in their accelerator experiments, researchers at
the Geneva lab and at related institutions around the world have begun to
theorise on the Higgs' implications for physics.
One idea that it throws up is the possibility of a cyclical universe, in which
every so often all of space is renewed.
"It turns out there's a calculation you can do in our Standard Model of
particle physics, once you know the mass of the Higgs boson," explained Dr
Joseph Lykken.
“This bubble will then expand, basically at the speed of light, and sweep
everything before it” Dr Joseph Lykken
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
"If you use all the physics we know now, and you do this straightforward
calculation - it's bad news.
"What happens is you get just a quantum fluctuation that makes a tiny bubble
of the vacuum the Universe really wants to be in. And because it's a lower-
energy state, this bubble will then expand, basically at the speed of light, and
sweep everything before it," the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
theoretician told BBC News.
It was not something we need worry about, he said. The Sun and the Earth will
be long gone by this time.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21499765
