{ "cells": [ { "cell_type": "code", "execution_count": 1, "metadata": {}, "outputs": [], "source": [ "from IPython.display import YouTubeVideo" ] }, { "cell_type": "markdown", "metadata": {}, "source": [ "# The early Universe\n", "\n", "According to the observations, the Universe is expanding today. Extrapolating backwards, this implies that the scale factor of the Universe must be quite small in the past. The radiation energy density scales as $\\rho_{\\rm rad} \\propto a^{-4}$. It must be the dominating source of energy density in the Early Universe, dominating over matter, $\\Lambda$ as well as the curvature. During this radiation dominated era, the temperature of the Universe would be determined by the properties of radiation. Assuming a black body nature for this radiation with temperature $T$, and assuming that physical constants of the Universe such as the radiation constant do not depend upon time, $\\rho_{\\rm rad} = 4\\sigma/c T^4$, where $\\sigma$ is the Boltzmann constant. Combining the behaviour of the radiation energy density with the scale factor and its behaviour with the temperature, we obtain the relation between temperature and the scale factor, $T \\propto a^{-1}$.\n", "\n", "The temperature of the Universe is thus inversely proportional to the scale factor, which implies that the Universe had a higher temperature at earlier epochs. Given that in the radiation dominated era, $a \\propto t^{1/2}$ where $t$ is the time, we obtain a relation between temperature and time $T \\propto t^{-1/2}$. \n", "\n", "