--------- #1311 - Is the Universe Spinning, or, Is It Just Me?
- Gravity and Relativity control the path of mass that is in motion. Even the smallest atoms that are also waves will follow a defined trajectory in flight. A device that measures the flight of atoms can become a gyroscope, or an accelerometer, or a gravity sensor. The device is called an atom interferometer and here is how it works:
- Atoms are shot up at an angle of about 10 degrees above the horizontal. These bunches of atoms will follow a well defined parabolic trajectory. A separate laser is fired at this stream of atoms hitting and separating bunches into different trajectories. Two of these trajectories are selected that have trajectories crossing paths at a detector.
- The atoms are bunches of particles, but, at the same time, they are waves. Because the waves cross from different trajectories the detector sees an interference pattern from the colliding waves. The pattern will vary under varying influence on trajectories by gravity or even the rotation of the Earth. Because the interference pattern is so sensitive to orientation it can measure exactly how much the Earth has rotated from its original latitude.
- With a different orientation firing the atoms horizontally, at 90 degrees or perpendicular to gravity, the interference pattern will be around the gravitational axis. The pattern will become a perfect sinusoid. The amplitude of the sinusoid is a function of the Earth’s rotation rate plus the latitude relative to the equator. True north is determined when the sinusoid interference nulls to zero. The direction that the laser beam is pointing is true north. With the rotation rate accurately known a simple calculation can determine the position for any latitude around the globe.
- With the proper orientations the device can be used as a gyroscope and an inertial navigation system. The device is so sensitive it even has the potential of verifying Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity equations that predict the “geodetic precession” of the Earth’s rotation of its own axis.
- There is a company in Sunnyvale, California, manufacturing this device for commercial applications. The current model is a 50 centimeter cube. The commercial model is expected go be 1 centimeter cube that will be used in terrestrial navigation systems. The name of the company is “AOsense“.
- The idea that atoms can sense rotation and can sense gravity has lead astronomers to a new theory of why there is a predominance of matter over anti-matter in the Universe. This observation is one of the biggest mysteries in physics, the Big Bang produced equal amounts, where did all the anti-matter go? The whole idea begins with the idea that the entire Universe might be rotating? Here are the thinking stones to walk across the pond to this remarkable idea:
- There is another law in physics called the Conservation of Parity. It says that the Universe does not discriminate between physical processes and objects and their mirror images. A spinning top follows the same laws of motion regardless if it spinning clockwise or counter-clockwise. The physics with spatial coordinates are always the same regardless or how you flip the coordinates. So, Parity is a well understood law in physics.
- However, Parity is violated in some biological processes. For example, molecules of amino acids definitely favor left-handedness or right-handedness. And, the two different molecules have different properties. The Conservation of Parity is violated.
- Recently, scientists discovered that Conservation of Parity is violated in Beta Decay. When studying the Weak Nuclear Force on a spinning cobalt-60 isotope 70% of the electrons emitted in Beta Decay aligned themselves against the direction of nuclear spin. 30% of the electrons aligned themselves in the direction of the nuclear spin. Parity was definitely violated on these small scales. Maybe, Parity is violated on the very large scales, like the Universe itself.
- A well accepted law in astronomy is that at the very largest scales the Universe is homogeneous and isotropic, meaning the Universe looks the same in all directions. But, what if the Universe is spinning? Would it still look the same in all directions? To test this idea astronomers began observing the spin directions of spiral galaxies. They expected the direction of spins to be random with no bias for clockwise or counter-clockwise directions. There was no reason for expectong a preferred direction of spin.
- The observations were not easy. Out of 40,000 galaxies observed and out to 540 million lightyears distance only 2,817 spiral galaxies could be identified as having a particular spin direction. At first it all seemed to be random. Then, astronomers noticed that along one direction about 10 degrees to our own galaxies spin axis there appeared to be more left-handed spiral galaxies. Less than 3,000 galaxies was not a large enough sample to make a definite conclusion. More study was needed.
- A follow on study in 2010 observed 230,000 galaxies out to 1.2 billion lightyears. This sample got to 15,158 rotating spiral galaxies. This time looking in the opposite direction in the southern sky they found a definite excess of right-handed spiral galaxies. The only conclusion they could come up with for this bias in spin direction was that the Universe had some net angular momentum giving galaxies an extra kick in formation to bias their spin direction.
- Parity is violated in a spinning Universe. The spinning Universe has asymmetry. If the Weak Nuclear Force does not respect Parity maybe it does not respect Symmetry either. Maybe gravity does not respect the law of Parity. If these asymmetries began in the early formation of the Universe the gravitational shockwaves should have interfered with the energy field that caused Cosmic Inflation. This biasing could have resulted in the production of more matter over anti-matter.
- Astronomers are looking for these gravitational shockwaves in the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation. They do see some strange patterns in the temperature variations. These strange unexplained patterns could be an effect of asymmetric gravitational waves. On top of that these strange patterns line up with the patterns of left and right-handedness of spiral galaxies.
- If we were to leap to conclusions on slight evidence we might say that an initial spinning Universe caused parity-violating asymmetry where gravity is allowing matter to dominate over anti-matter. Bold theories need a preponderance of evidence.
- There are two missions defined for Europe’s Planck satellite that will study the Cosmic Microwave Background with greater resolution and for Japan’s Subaru Telescope in Hawaii to judge spin orientation of more spiral galaxies. A spinning Universe is a new idea. What does it all mean? An announcement will be made shortly, stay tuned.
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707-536-3272, Thursday, October 20, 2011
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