By Jens Christian Jensenius, Aarhus University, Denmark
A popular theory for the beginning of any universe is based on quantum mechanics, which is capable of generating something out of nothing. Vacuum is thus supposed to be teeming with energy, particles and antiparticles. Micro universes pop up and disappears immediately. Only in exceptional cases is one of sufficiently stable composition to persist. An inescapable condition must be a balance between repulsive and cohesive forces, the latter being gravitational. I suggest that our nascent Universe did not contain sufficient gravitational force in itself to survive the first instant. However, the required additional gravity was provided by a simultaneously generated other Universe. At first sight this may appear absurdly improbable. When considering an untold number of universes popping up out of nothing at quantum mechanical speed it is inevitable that two primordial universes must appear at the same time and place. In our resulting composite Univers the natural laws and the nature of matter will differ between the two parts. Possibly, only the effect of gravity, provided by our companion universe, may be perceptible by us.
The extensive search for the nature of the elusive dark matter has so far failed to turn out likely candidates (1,2,3,4,5,6,7). I here take the liberty of proposing a possible explanation for the negative results. I shall start with the most basic question of all: “Why is there something and not nothing.” To this age-old question quantum physics has proposed the solution that vacuum, or empty space, is teeming with energy due to quantum fluctuations, or vacuum fluctuations, allowing for the creation of virtual particle-antiparticle pairs – popping out of nothing and annihilating as quickly as they appear. Occasionally a particle (or antiparticle) escapes this annihilation long enough for something else to happen. Whatever this “else” might be, it could form the starting point for the cosmic inflation theory proposed in 1979 by Alan Guth for the origin of our Universe from an infinitesimally small start. In a blink of an eye (10-32 sec) inflation expanded this nascent universe enormously, followed by a slower expansion, to encompass all the material or energy found in the Universe.
It is impossible to imagine a constraint preventing a continued generation of universes from vacuum fluctuations. As the totality is limitless the generation of universes must happen an infinite number of times. The quantum fluctuation origin of the universe thus logically implies the existence of many universes – universes with different physical constants and particles of different nature from those of our own universe. The possibility of such entirely different universes was already hypothesized by Isaac Newton (8).
To create a stable universe requests a fine balance between energy and matter. Without the gravity supplied by the so-called Dark Matter the universe, our universe, would have had a very short life-span. I propose that combining the quantum fluctuations theory with the multiverse hypothesis we arrive at a plausible answer to the failure to understand the nature of Dark Matter:
Our universe must have been initiated within, or simultaneously with, another universe delivering the gravity ascribed to dark matter in order to prevent the immediate collapse of the nascent universe. If the gravitational force originates in another Univers it might not be possible to discern its nature.