The time of the

matter
If we go back in time from today, we shall find a more and
more dense and hot universe. The best way to see the past of
the universe is to look faraway.
The speed of light is finite, so looking far in space is also
looking far in the past.

If we travel back in time, about 14 billions years in the past, we

arrive at a point were the temperature of the universe is 3000
K.
Above this temperature, the atoms of hydrogen which form the
major part of the matter in the universe are separated : there
is a plasma, a mixture of protons and free electrons. And such
a plasma is optically opaque : the photons can not travel
through it.

So, 3000 K is the temperature of the freedom of the photons,

that's also the starting point of the fossil radiation.
This fact means that the image of the sky seen by the COBE
satellite is the image of the universe when its temperature was
3000 K, about 14 billions years ago. And whatever the
wavelenght of scrutation may be, we cannot see farther.
This temperature is called the electromagnetic decoupling
temperature.

The origin of light elements

We know that the various elements of the universe are formed
inside the stars, in particular at the end of their life. But some
light elements cannot result from stars, especially deuterium,
made up of one proton and one neutron. Deuterium can simply
not support the high temperatures of the stars.

Hydrogen, which
is the simpliest
element, is made
up of only one
proton.

Just as the abundance of the helium in the universe, the

proportion of lithium cannot be explained only by its production
in the core of the stars.

Again, let's go back in time, and let's assume that the

temperature reached 10 billions degrees : 1010 K.
At this time, the atomic nuclei simply don't exist : the universe
is only a warm soup, mainly made up of protons, neutrons,
electrons and neutrinos.
According to a reference clock, the age of the universe is now
one second.

When the temperature drops down below 1010 K, the energy of

the neutrinos decreases, preventing them from interacting with
nucleons. They become then free to circulate. This temperature
plays the same role towards the neutrinos as the 3000 K
towards photons : it is called the weak decoupling
temperature.
If we were able to build a telescope which could detect
neutrinos in place of photons, we could see the universe as it
was at this temperature. And hence, we could travel back in
the past for another one million years, which is the time
required for the universe to cool down from 1010 K to 3000 K.
The more we travel back in time, the shorter are the proper
times. High temperatures accelerate the rythm of physical
phenomena.
Towards one billion degrees, i.e. a hundred or so seconds after
the decoupling of the neutrinos, neutrons are able to merge
with protons to form nuclei of deuterium , and go on merging
with other nucleons to create nuclei of helium-3, helium-4 and
lithium-7.
These nuclear reactions are well known and reproduced in
laboratories. So, we can theoretically calculate the respective
abundances of these elements : the theory is quite in good
agreement with the measurements of the surface of the stars
and of the interstellar medium.

Evolution of the
relative
concentrations of
the light elements
during the
primordial
nucleosynthesis of
the Big Bang.

Neutrons slowly
disappear further
to the creation of
light elements
because they are
unstable particles.

This phenomenon, called primordial nucleosynthesis, is the

second proof of the Big Bang : no other theory is able to
explain these abundances of light elements in the current
universe.

So, the universe needed a hundred of seconds to make up all

the light elements that we can always find today.
Summary of the evolution of the universe since the first
second.

When the universe is one billion years old, galaxies begin to

form by gathering of stars and gas, and quasars will appear
towards 3 billions years.

The birth of the galaxies

Since 14 billions years, matter is gathering to form galaxies.
How is it possible, within an expanding universe?
Gravity is the only force that is able to gather matter. The most
likely scenario uses "germs", microscopic areas denser than
their neighbourhood, which can attract the surrounding matter.
This matter goes and increases the local overdensity, and so
on in a snowball effect.

But this scenario asks us two questions :

• at this time, universe was exceedingly homogenous,

better than 1 part for 100,000 ; that's what COBE
 measured. So, where are these germs coming from ? Our
best hypothesis relies on fluctuations of the initial energy
field. Let us remember that the uncertainty principle
forbids the energy to have a perfectly determined value.
• calculations indicate that the density of a region increases
by a factor ten each time the temperature is divided by
ten. How can the galaxies be so dense now, compared to
the surrounding medium ? Indeed, the temperature has
been divided by 1,000 only, and the initial overdensities
did not exceed a hundred-thousandth ?

We have already noticed that the rotation of the spiral galaxies

indicates the existence of a great amount of undetected
masses in their halo. These masses could be made of so called
"dark" matter, very weakly interacting with the light, what
explains why we do not discover it.

If this dark matter is so little active, it was able to begin to

concentrate before the electromagnetic decoupling, at a
temperature greater than 3,000 K, where the atoms begin to
exist. All the problem is to detect this dark matter in order to
prove its existence.
A variation of this dark matter, the WIMPs (Weakly Interactive
Massive Particle), are foreseen by the supersymetrical theories,
which come as a supplement to the standard model. But these
particles still remain to discover experimentally.

We must recognize that the Big Bang theory doesn't supply a

very clear explanation for the forming of the galaxies.
Numerous searches, theoretical and experimental, still remain
to lead.