Articolo tratto da Space Daily , traduzione di Andrew
Guardando all’indietro nel tempo un istante dopo il Big Bang, i fisici della University of Wisconsin-Madison hanno concepito un approccio che può aiutare a scoprire le minuscole forme delle dimensioni extra dell’universo. Un nuovo studio dimostra che le ombre di dimensioni extra possono essere “viste” decifrando la loro influenza nell’energia cosmica rilasciata dalla violenta nascita the universe 13 billion years ago.
The method, published in the February 2007 issue of the journal Physical Review Letters , provides evidence that physicists can use experimental data to discern the nature of these elusive dimensions, whose existence is a critical but as yet unproven of string theory, the leading contender for a "theory of everything" merged (the "Holy Grail" of modern science, NDT).
Scientists developed string theory, which proposes that everything in the universe is made up of tiny vibrating strings of energy, in order to understand the physical principles of all objects: from immense galassie alle particelle subatomiche. Benché attualmente candidata al successo per spiegare la struttura del cosmo la teoria rimane, alla data, non testata.
La matematica della teoria delle stringhe suggerisce che il mondo che conosciamo non sia completo. In aggiunta alle nostre quattro dimensioni familiari – tre spaziali ed una temporale – questa teoria predice l’esistenza di sei dimensioni spaziali extra, che sarebbero nascoste ed arrotolate in minuscole forme geometriche presenti in ogni singolo punto del nostro universo.
“Non abbiate paura se non siete capaci di immaginare un mondo in dieci dimensioni. Le nostre menti sono abituate solo a tre dimensioni spaziali e mancano di un punto di riferimento per the other six, "said physicist Gary Shiu, a physicist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who led the new study. Though scientists use computers to understand what kind of geometry may resemble those six extra dimensions, no one really knows for sure which form they may take.
The new work of the University of Wisconsin-Madison may provide a basis to observe and measure this aspect of string theory previously undetectable.
According to the mathematics of string theory, extra dimensions may have tens of thousands of possible shapes, each of which ideally corresponds to a specific universe with a characteristic set of physical laws.
For our universe, "Nature has chosen one, and we want to know what it looks like," explains Henry Tye, a physicist at Cornell University who was not involved in the new research.
Shiu said that the multi-dimensional shapes are too small to be seen or measured by the traditional means of measurement, which make it so difficult this important verification of string theory. "You can theorize anything, but you must be able to demonstrate experimentally. The question now is how to test string theory? "
Shiu and Bret Underwood graduated looked skyward for inspiration.
Their approach is based on the idea that the six tiny extra dimensions had their greatest influence in the universe because it was a tiny speck of matter and energy tablets, or the instant just after the Big Bang.
Shiu says: "Our idea was to go back in time to see what happened in those days. Obviously, we can not really go back in time. "
Without the indispensable need a time machine, they used the next best tool: a map of cosmic energy released by the Big Bang. The energy, captured by satellites such as the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) NASA has remained virtually unchanged over the last 13 billion years, essentially making the energy map as a "baby picture of the universe," Shiu says. The WMAP experiment is the successor of the project Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) NASA, who have won the 2006 Nobel Prize for Physics.
Shiu explains that "as a shadow can give an idea of \u200b\u200bthe shape of an object, the pattern of cosmic energy in the sky can give an indication of the shape of the other six dimensions present."
To learn how to read from the cosmic map hidden signs six-dimensional geometry, they worked backward. Beginning with two different types of simple mathematical geometries, called warped throats (warped throats), calculated the expected energy map that you would see in the universe described by each shape. When they compared the two maps, they found small but significant differences.
Their results show that specific patterns of cosmic energy can hold clues to the shape of six-dimensional geometry, and the first type of observable data seem to confirm this promise.
Although current data are not precise enough to compare their findings with our universe, upcoming experiments such as the European Space Agency's Planck satellite should have adequate sensitivity to discover the subtle differences between the geometries.
Shiu said that "our experiment with simple forms and well known to give a demonstration that the geometry of hidden dimensions can be deciphered from the pattern of cosmic energy. This provides a rare opportunity in which string theory can be tested. "
The improvement of technologies to capture more detailed cosmic maps should help narrow the possibilities and allow scientists to open the code maps of energy, and to approach identification of the individual shapes that fill our universe.
"The implications of this possibility are profound, "says Tye. "If the forms can be measured, this will confirm to us that string theory is correct."
