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Updated: Mar 14, 2026

Investigation of Early Plasma Evolution Induced by Ultrashort Laser Pulses

Investigation of Early Plasma Evolution Induced by Ultrashort Laser Pulses

Published on: July 2, 2012

Shocks in the Early Universe.

Ue-Li Pen¹, Neil Turok²

¹Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics, 60 St George Street, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3H8, Canada.

Physical Review Letters

|October 8, 2016

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Cosmological perturbations unexpectedly generate shocks in the early Universe, producing gravitational waves. This finding offers a new way to probe the primordial Universe using gravitational wave experiments.

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Area of Science:

Cosmology
Astrophysics
Particle Physics

Background:

Standard cosmological models assume initial conditions for perturbations.
These perturbations are typically Gaussian, linear, adiabatic, scalar, and in the growing mode.
Acoustic oscillations are observed on large scales due to these perturbations.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the unexpected consequences of standard initial conditions for cosmological perturbations.
To explore the production of shocks and their implications in the early Universe.
To determine if shock formation can be detected by gravitational wave experiments.

Main Methods:

Analysis of cosmological perturbation theory.
Investigation of shock formation in the radiation fluid.
Modeling of gravitational wave emission from shocks.
Comparison with observational constraints from gravitational wave detectors.

Main Results:

Gaussian, linear, adiabatic, scalar, growing mode perturbations produce shocks in the early Universe.
Shocks lead to departures from local thermal equilibrium, vorticity, and gravitational waves.
For a scale-invariant spectrum, shocks form between 1 GeV and 10^7 GeV.
Shock formation is linked to specific power spectra, relevant for primordial black hole formation.

Conclusions:

Shock formation in the early Universe is a direct consequence of initial cosmological perturbations.
Gravitational waves generated by these shocks provide a detectable signal for current and future experiments.
This provides a powerful new tool to constrain conditions in the primordial Universe as early as 10^-30 seconds after the Big Bang.