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Putting the “bang” in the Big Bang

Physicists simulate critical “reheating” period that kickstarted the Big Bang in the universe’s first fractions of a second.

Jennifer Chu | MIT News Office

October 24, 2019

READ THE FULL ARTICLE at MIT NEWS: Putting the “bang” in the Big Bang

Quick Excerpts:

“The postinflation reheating period sets up the conditions for the Big Bang, and in some sense puts the ‘bang’ in the Big Bang,” says David Kaiser, the Germeshausen Professor of the History of Science and professor of physics at MIT.

“It’s this bridge period where all hell breaks loose and matter behaves in anything but a simple way.”The team’s results appear today in Physical Review Letters. Kaiser’s co-authors are lead author Rachel Nguyen, and John T. Giblin, both of Kenyon College, and former MIT graduate student Evangelos Sfakianakis and Jorinde van de Vis, both of Leiden University in the Netherlands.