Another premium for creating the world

In January of this year, Vyacheslav Mukhanov and Stephen Hawking received the International Prize "Borders of Knowledge in Fundamental Science." Generally speaking, this is another major prize, which in one combination or another receive these two laureates for the work of thirty -five years ago. More than two years ago, we already wrote about the previous award received by Mukhanov along with Alexei Starobinsky. What kind of work is this and why do they receive a prize for the award right now, more than 30 years later?

The universe looks on average homogeneous on maps covering billions of light years, but on a smaller scale a well -distinguishable cellular structure appears; Further, down the hierarchy, there are clusters of galaxies, galaxies, stars. It is clear where the stars in galaxies came from-they quickly go thickened due to gravitational instability. But neither the galaxy nor the accumulation of galaxies would have managed to thicken from the homogeneous substance of the universe, if there were no original clots and sparse. Without them, there would be neither galaxies, no stars, nor you and me - only the gas density is less than the atom in the cubic meter of space. To form galaxies, enough for the primary disturbances of the density to have a slight contrast, say, one hundred thousandth. But where did they come from?

This was the first question was Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov, suggesting that the primary heterogeneity is a quantum effect in the early universe. This was a correct assumption, but it was very ahead of its time, and the result turned out to be negative - the heterogeneity did not have time to grow to such a size as to turn into a galaxy.

Time came in the very beginning of the 1980s, when a new revolution in cosmology occurred, which gave the theory of inflation. Vyacheslav Mukhanov (a graduate student who had just finished Fizteh) and Gennady Chibisov tried to break through in the same direction as Sakharov - to obtain primary heterogeneity from quantum fluctuations in the early Universe. But they did not succeed in nothing. It did not work until they checked how quantum fluctuations work in the script for inflation of the universe. And everything fell into place.

At that time, there was neither the term “inflation”, nor the theory of inflation as such. There was not a revolutionary article by Alan Gut, nor the article of Starobinsky, in which a realistic inflation mechanism was proposed. There was the concept of “the world of de Sitter”, an abstract solution to Einstein’s equations and some general ideas that this decision can save the cosmology of endless density at the beginning of its expansion. And now Mukhanov and Chibisov see that the world of de Sitter solves another problem, may be more important, - explains the origin of the galaxies.

They publish an article with this statement, but very unsuccessful - in the form of a preprint, and the journal publication is delayed until 1982, when everything has already happened. But this was only the first estimate. It was important to take one more step - to calculate the spectrum of disturbances, that is, the distribution of the amplitude of heterogeneities in size. In the first approximation, the spectrum turned out to be flat, that is, the amplitude of heterogeneities did not depend on their size. But it was necessary to calculate the exact spectrum. This was done by Vyacheslav Mukhanov at the very beginning of 1981, relying on the inflation model of Alexei Starobinsky. It turned out that the spectrum is slightly “reder” of the flat - the amplitude of the large size is slightly larger. The difference is small: if the flat spectrum is described by the unit degree, then the accurate is 0.96, and this value is poorly dependent on the inflation model. A little later, Stephen Hawking publishes the same result.

It would seem that from that? What is the difference, what is the indicator of the degree dependence - 1 or 0.96 - interest here can be purely academic. Then it was impossible to imagine that someday the spectrum of primary heterogeneities of the Universe will become the subject of precision measurements.

Thirty years have passed. First, the American space microwave telescope WMAP, then the European "plank" with fantastic accuracy measured the range of heterogeneous relict radiation. The initial indicator of the spectrum of heterogeneity, which must be laid so that after a series of transformations in the early Universe it turns into the observed relic radiation map, turned out to be 0.96 with an accuracy of 0.006. Here you have another triumph of fundamental science! Here is the reason why Mukhanov, Hawking, as well as other heroes of the 1980s cosmological revolution-Linda, Gut, Starobinsky-receive prestigious weighty bonuses one after another.

So sometimes theoretical works, which are of purely academic interest, suddenly form the basis of our ideas about the foundation of the universe, explaining how this wonderful universe was formed in which you can live.

Boris Stern

PS In order not to get up twice, we report that the author of the author of this note “Breakthrough over the world”, where the whole story is stated in a detailed form, is still available through our “Parlorg” at a much lower price than through the “ozone”. See http://trv-science.ru/proryv/gde-kupit-knigu-proryv-za-krajjjj-mira/-everything said about mail is relevant.