TOPIC: THE FUNDAMENTAL FORCES

THAT OCCUR IN NATURE

SUBMITTED TO: SUBMITTED BY:

Mr. Avneesh

LEC. Of phy102

Acknowledgement
To many individuals , I am indebted good connsel and
assistance in various ways. In this respect one of my
sincerest thanks to Mr. Avneesh (lecturer) of Lovely
Professional University, Phagwara for their kind
cooperation and guidance

I owe a deep since of indebtedness of my

pureness that have been source of inspiration of every
work of my life. I deeply express our ineptness and
thanks to all my faculty members of B.Tech intg.
M.Tech IT for their valuable guidance which enable
me to presentable manners.

CONTENTS :
 INTRODUCTION
 MAIN FOUR FORCES
  NUCLEAR FORCES
 WEAK FORCES
 GRAVITATIONAL FORCES
 ELECTRO MAGNETIC FORCES
 THE GEOMETRY OF THE UNIVERSE
 LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE
 THE PROBLEMS WITH THE BIG BANG
 REFRENCE

The Fundamental Forces of Nature

There are 4 fundamental forces that have been identified. In our present Universe they have
rather different properties.

Properties of the Fundamental Forces

 The strong interaction is very strong, but very short-ranged. It acts only over ranges of
order 10-13 centimetres and is responsible for holding the nuclei of atoms together. It is
basically attractive, but can be effectively repulsive in some circumstances.
  The electromagnetic force causes electric and magnetic effects such as the repulsion
between like electrical charges or the interaction of bar magnets. It is long-ranged, but
much weaker than the strong force. It can be attractive or repulsive, and acts only
between pieces of matter carrying electrical charge.
 The weak force is responsible for radioactive decay and neutrino interactions. It has a
very short range and, as its name indicates, it is very weak.
 The gravitational force is weak, but very long ranged. Furthermore, it is always
attractive, and acts between any two pieces of matter in the Universe since mass is its
source.

The Tortoise and the Hare: Gravity Always Wins

The four fundamental forces all play central roles in making the Universe what it is today, but
with respect to the large-scale issues that are of interest to cosmology it is gravitation that is
most important. This is because of two of its basic properties that set it apart from the other
forces: (1) it is long-ranged and thus can act over cosmological distances, and (2) it always
supplies an attractive force between any two pieces of matter in the Universe.

Thus, although gravitation is extremely weak, it always wins over cosmological distances and
therefore is the most important force for the understanding of the large scale structure and
evolution of the Universe.

Unification of the Forces of Nature

Although the above discussion indicates that the fundamental forces in our present Universe
are distinct and have very different characteristics, the current thinking in theoretical physics
is that this was not always so. There is a rather strong belief (although it is yet to be
confirmed experimentally) that in the very early Universe when temperatures were very high
compared with today, the weak, electromagnetic, and strong forces were unified into a single
force. Only when the temperature dropped did these forces separate from each other, with the
strong force separating first and then at a still lower temperature the electromagnetic and

weak forces separating to leave us with the 4 distinct forces that we see in our present
Universe. The process of the forces separating from each other is called spontaneous
symmetry breaking. There is further speculation, which is even less firm than that above, that
at even higher temperatures (the Planck Scale) all four forces were unified into a single force.
Then, as the temperature dropped, gravitation separated first and then the other 3 forces
separated as described above. The time and temperature scales for this proposed sequential
loss of unification are illustrated in the following table.
Loss of Unity in the Forces of Nature
Time Since Temperature
Characterization Forces Unified
Beginning (GeV)*
 Gravity, Strong,
All 4 forces unified ~0 ~infinite
Electromagnetic, Weak
Gravity separates Strong,
10-43 s 1019
(Planck Scale) Electromagnetic, Weak
Strong force separates
Electromagnetic, Weak 10-35 s 1014
(GUTs Scale)
Split of weak and
None 10-11 s 100
electromagnetic forces
Present Universe None 1010 y 10-12
* 13
Temperature Conversion: 1 GeV = 1.2 x 10 K

Theories that postulate the unification of the strong, weak, and electromagnetic forces are
called Grand Unified Theories (often known by the acronym GUTs). Theories that add
gravity to the mix and try to unify all four fundamental forces into a single force are called
Superunified Theories. The theory that describes the unified electromagnetic and weak
interactions is called the Standard Electroweak Theory, or sometimes just the Standard
Model.

Grand Unified and Superunified Theories remain theoretical speculations that are as yet
unproven, but there is strong experimental evidence for the unification of the electromagnetic
and weak interactions in the Standard Electroweak Theory. Furthermore, although GUTs are
not proven experimentally, there is strong circumstantial evidence to suggest that a theory at
least like a Grand Unified Theory is required to make sense of the Universe.

Gravitation and the General Theory of

Relativity
As we have discussed in an earlier section, the theoretical physicist Albert Einstein
introduced his Special Theory of Relativity in 1905 and his General Theory of Relativity in
1915. The first showed that Newton's Three Laws of Motion were only approximately
correct, breaking down when velocities approached that of light. The second showed that
Newton's Law of Gravitation was also only approximately correct, breaking down when
gravitation becames very strong.

Special Relativity
Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity is valid for systems that are not accelerating. Since
from Newton's second law an acceleration implies a force, special relativity is valid only
when no forces act. Thus, it cannot be used generally when there is a gravitational field
present (as we shall see below in conjunction with the Principle of Equivalence, it can be
used over a sufficiently localized region of spacetime).

We have already discussed some of the important implications of the Special Theory of
Relativity. For example, the most famous is probably the relationship between mass and
energy. Other striking consequences are associated with the dependence of space and time on
velocity: at speeds near that of light, space itself becomes contracted in the direction of
motion and the passage of time slows. Although these seem bizarre ideas (because our
everyday experience typically does not include speeds near that of light), many experiments
indicate that the Special Theory of Relativity is correct and our "common sense" (and
Newton's laws) are incorrect near the speed of light.

General Relativity

The General Theory of Relativity was Einstein's stupendous effort to remove the restriction
on Special Relativity that no accelerations (and therefore no forces) be present, so that he
could apply his ideas to the gravitational force. It is a measure of the difficulty of the problem
that it took even the great Einstein approximately 10 years to fully understand how to do this.
Thus, the General Theory of Relativity is a new theory of gravitation proposed in place of
Newtonian gravitation.

Tests of the Theory of General Relativity

General Relativity and Newton's gravitational theory make essentially identical predictions as
long as the strength of the gravitational field is weak, which is our usual experience.
However, there are several crucial predictions where the two theories diverge, and thus can
be tested with careful experiments.

1. The orientation of Mercury's orbit is found to

precess in space over time, as indicated in the
adjacent figure (the magnitude of the effect is
greatly exaggerated for purposes of
illustration). This is commonly called the
"precession of the perihelion", because it
causes the position of the perihelion to move
around the center of mass. Only part of this
can be accounted for by perturbations in
Newton's theory. There is an extra 43
seconds of arc per century in this precession that is predicted by the Theory of
General Relativity and observed to occur (recall that a second of arc is 1/3600 of an
angular degree). This effect is extremely small, but the measurements are very precise
and can detect such small effects very well.
2. Einstein's theory predicts that the direction of light propagation should be changed in
a gravitational field. Precise observations indicate that Einstein is right, both about the
effect and its magnitude. We have already seen a spectacular consequence of the
deflection of light in a gravitational field: gravitational lensing.
 3. The General Theory of Relativity predicts that light coming from a strong
gravitational field should have its wavelength shifted to larger values (a redshift).
Once again, detailed observations indicate such a redshift, and that its magnitude is
correctly given by Einstein's theory.
4. The electromagnetic field can have waves in it that carry energy and that we call light.
Likewise, the gravitational field can have waves that carry energy and are called
gravitational waves. These may be thought of as ripples in the curvature of spacetime
that travel at the speed of light.

Just as accelerating charges can emit electromagnetic waves, accelerating masses can
emit gravitational waves. However gravitational waves are difficult to detect because
they are very weak and no conclusive evidence has yet been reported for their direct
observation.

They have been observed indirectly in the binary pulsar. Because the arrival time of
pulses from the pulsar can be measured very precisely, it can be determined that the
period of the binary system is gradually decreasing. It is found that the rate of period
change (about 75 millionths of a second each year) is what would be expected for
energy being lost to gravitational radiation, as predicted by the Theory of General
Relativity.

The Modern Theory of Gravitation

Our best current theory of gravitation is the General Theory of Relativity. However, only if
velocities are comparable to that of light, or gravitational fields are much larger than those
encountered on the Earth, do the Relativity theory and Newton's theories differ in their
predictions. Under most conditions Newton's three laws and his theory of gravitation are
adequate.

The Principle of Equivalence

The General Theory of Relativity is formulated in terms of mathematics well beyond the
scope of our survey course in astronomy (primarily in fields of mathematics that go by the
names of tensor analysis and Riemannian geometry). Nevertheless, many of the basic ideas
can be understood without extensive mathematics.

General Relativity: the Principle of Equivalence

One of the most important of these is the Principle of Equivalence, which can be used to
derive important results without having to solve the full equations of General Relativity.

There are several ways to formulate the Principle of Equivalence, but one of the simplest is
Einstein's original insight: he suddenly realized, while sitting in his office in Bern,
Switzerland, in 1907, that if he were to fall freely in a gravitational field (think of a sky diver
before she opens her parachute, or an unfortunate elevator if its cable breaks), he would be
unable to feel his own weight. Einstein later recounted that this realization was the "happiest
moment in his life", for he understood that this idea was the key to how to extend the Special
Theory of Relativity to include the effect of gravitation. We are used to seeing astrononauts
in free fall as their spacecraft circles the Earth these days, but we should appreciate that in
1907 this was a rather remarkable insight.

Importance of the Equivalence Principle

An equivalent formulation of the Principle of Equivalence is that at any local (that is,
sufficiently small) region in space time it is possible to formulate the equations governing
physical laws such that the effect of gravitation can be neglected. This in turn means that the
Special Theory of Relativity is valid for that particular situation, and this in turn allows a
number of things to be deduced because the solution of the equations for the Special Theory
of Relativity is beyond the scope of our course, but is not particularly difficult for those
trained in the required mathematics.

Consequences of the Principle of Equivalence

For example, by considering the Principle of Equivalence applied to light travelling across a
freely falling elevator, it is possible to conclude that light will follow a curved path in a
gravitational field. See this discussion to understand how. Likewise, by considering light
travelling upwards in an elevator in free fall, it is possible to conclude that light will be
redshifted in a gravitational field.

The Geometry of the Universe

The most profound insight of General Relativity was the conclusion that the effect of
gravitation could be reduced to a statement about the geometry of spacetime. In particular,
Einstein showed that in General Relativity mass caused space to curve, and objects travelling
in that curved space have their paths deflected, exactly as if a force had acted on them.

Curvature of Space in Two Dimensions

The idea of a curved surface is not an unfamiliar one since we live on the surface of a sphere.
More generally, mathematicians distinguish 3 qualitatively different classes of curvature, as
illustrated in the following image (Source):
These are examples of surfaces that have two dimensions. For example, the left surface can
be described by a coordinate system having two variables (x and y, say); likewise, the other
two surfaces are each described by two independent coordinates. The flat surface at the left is
said to have zero curvature, the spherical surface is said to have positive curvature, and the
saddle-shaped surface is said to have negative curvature.

Curvature of 4-Dimensional Spacetime

The preceding is not too difficult to visualize, but General Relativity asserts that space itself
(not just an object in space) can be curved, and furthermore, the space of General Relativity
has 3 space-like dimensions and one time dimension, not just two as in our example above.
This IS difficult to visualize! Nevertheless, it can be described mathematically by the same
methods that mathematicians use to describe the 2-dimensional surfaces that we can visualize
easily.

The Large-Scale Geometry of the Universe

Since space itself is curved, there are three general possibilities for the geometry of the
Universe. Each of these possibilites is tied intimately to the amount of mass (and thus to the
total strength of gravitation) in the Universe, and each implies a different past and future for
the Universe:

 If space has negative curvature, there is insufficient mass to cause the expansion of
the Universe to stop. The Universe in that case has no bounds, and will expand
forever. This is termed an open universe.
 If space has no curvature (it is flat), there is exactly enough mass to cause the
expansion to stop, but only after an infinite amount of time. Thus, the Universe has no
bounds in that case and will also expand forever, but with the rate of expansion
gradually approaching zero after an infinite amount of time. This is termed a flat
universe or a Euclidian universe (because the usual geometry of non-curved surfaces
that we learn in high school is called Euclidian geometry).
 If space has positive curvature, there is more than enough mass to stop the present
expansion of the Universe. The Universe in this case is not infinite, but it has no end
(just as the area on the surface of a sphere is not infinite but there is no point on the
sphere that could be called the "end"). The expansion will eventually stop and turn
into a contraction. Thus, at some point in the future the galaxies will stop receding
 from each other and begin approaching each other as the Universe collapses on itself.
This is called a closed universe.

Which of these scenarios is correct is still unknown because we have been unable to
determine exactly how much mass is in the
Universe. The Density Parameter of the Universe
Source Value
Is the Universe Open, Flat, or Closed?
Baryons (BB (0.013 +/- 0.005)
nucleosynthesis) h-2
The geometry of the Universe is often
expressed in terms of the density parameter, Stars in Galaxies 0.004
which is defined to the the ratio of the Intergalactic Stars <0.04
actual density of the Universe to the critical Rich Clusters 0.01
density that would just be required to cause
-1
the expansion to stop. Thus, if the Universe Dynamics (r < 10 h Mpc) ~0.05 - 0.2
is flat (contains just the amount of mass to Dynamics (r > 30 h Mpc)
-1
~0.05 - 1
close it) the density parameter is exactly 1,
if the Universe is open with negative Source: P. J. E. Peebles, Principles of Physical Cosmology
curvature the density parameter lies
between 0 and 1, and if the Universe is closed with positive curvature the density parameter
is greater than 1.

The density parameter determined from various methods is summarized in the adjacent table.
In this table, BB nucleosynthesis refers to constraints coming from the synthesis of the light
elements in the big bang, +/- denotes an experimental uncertainty in a quantity, and the
parameter h lies in the range 0.5 to 0.85 and measures the uncertainty in the value of the
Hubble parameter.

Although most of these methods (which we will not discuss in detail) yield values of the
density parameter far below the critical value of 1, we must remember that they have likely
not detected all matter in the Universe yet. The current theoretical prejudice (because it is
predicted by the theory of cosmic inflation) is that the Universe is flat, with exactly the

amount of mass required to stop the expansion (the corresponding average critical density
that would just stop the is called the closure density), but this is not yet confirmed. Therefore,
the value of the density parameter and thus the ultimate fate of the Universe remains one of
the major unsolved problems in modern cosmology.

LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE

The Voyager I and II spacecraft launched in 1977 are traveling out of the Solar System. The
adjacent image shows a plaque that is attached to each, intended as a greeting to any
extraterrestrial civilation that might find them (Ref). Given the vastness of interstellar space,
it is admittedly very unlikely that the Voyagers would be found by an extraterrestrial
civilization but the content of the plaque is a useful exercise in the issue of how we would
deal with an encounter with intelligent living things from beyond our own planet. The content
of the plaque is discussed here.

In this material we have surveyed a few of the violent processes that are taking place in our
universe. These processes have played a central role in shaping our universe. The heavy
elements would not exist but for stars, and they would not be distributed through the galaxies
except for cataclysmic explosions such as novae and supernovae. Furthermore, there is
extensive evidence that the stars themselves are often born from the aftermath of violent
events: supernova blast waves triggering gravitational collapse in surrounding nubulae or
riotous star formation in the debris of colliding galaxies. The Universe itself, and all the
matter that it contains, seems to have been born in the Mother of All Explosions, and its
continuing evolution makes abundant use of explosive processes having magnitudes that defy
imagination.

It has been said that we are star-stuff; many of the atoms in our very bodies were almost
certainly forged in the furnaces of supernovae or novae in the distant past, and we may well
owe our present existence to star and element production that can be traced to exploding or
colliding galaxies in earlier epochs of the Universe. Thus we find the supreme irony that the
staid universe of the Middle Ages would likely be barren of life in the forms that we know
because it would preclude the formation of elements essential to that life, while the violent
universe of the modern astronomer has produced life in rich variety, at least in this corner of
an average solar system in an average galaxy of 100 billion stars. Though we cannot know
for certain, it is a reasonable assumption that many other life-forms in the Universe owe a
similar debt to exploding galaxies and stars.

Problems with the Big Bang

The hot big bang theory has been extremely successful in correlating the observable
properties of our Universe. However, there are some difficulties associated with the big bang
theory. These difficulties are not so much errors as they are assumptions that are necessary
but that do not have a fundamental justification. The required discussion is technical, so we
will be content with a rather superficial statement of the three basic problems that are
associated with the big bang and how they might be cured by a new idea that arises from
considering the implications of elementary particle physics for cosmology.

The Horizon Problem

We have already encountered the horizon problem in conjunction with the discussion of the
cosmic microwave background: when we look at the microwave background radiation
coming from widely separated parts of the sky, it can be shown that these regions are too
separated to have been able to have ever communicated with each other even with signals
travelling at light velocity. Thus, how did they know to have almost exactly the same
temperature? This general problem is called the horizon problem, because the inability to
have received a signal from some distant source because of the finite speed of light is termed
a horizon in cosmology. Thus, in the standard big bang theory we must simply assume the
required level of uniformity.
The Flatness Problem

The experimental evidence is that the present Universe has very low geometrical curvature in
its spacetime (it is nearly flat). Theoretical arguments that are well established but too
complex to go into here suggest that this is a very unlikely result of the evolution of the
Universe from the big bang, unless the initial curvature is confined to an incredibly narrow
range of possibilities. While this is not impossible, it does not seem very natural.

The Monopole Problem

The only plausible theory in elementary particle physics for how nuclei in the present
universe were created in the big bang requires the use of what are called Grand Unified
Theories (GUTs). In these theories, at very high temperatures such as those found in the
instants after the Universe was created the strong, weak, and electromagnetic forces were
(contrary to the situation today) indistinguishable from each other. We say that they were
unified into a single force.

Although there is as yet no certain evidence for the validity of such theories, there is strong
theoretical reason to believe that they will eventually turn out to be essentially correct. Our
current understanding of elementary particle physics indicates that such theories should
produce very massive particles called magnetic monopoles, and that there should be many
such monopoles in the Universe today. However, no one has ever found such a particle. So
the final problem is: where are the monopoles?

The Cosmic Background Radiation

In every direction,

there is a very low energy and very uniform radiation that we see filling the Universe. This is
called the 3 Degree Kelvin Background Radiation, or the Cosmic Background Radiation, or
the Microwave Background. These names come about because this radiation is essentially a
black body with temperature slightly less than 3 degrees Kelvin (about 2.76 K), which peaks
in the microwave portion of the spectrum. This radiation is the strongest evidence for the
validity of the hot big bang model. The adjacent figure shows the essentially perfect
blackbody spectrum obtained by NASA's Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite.

The following image was taken by COBE. It shows the temperature of the cosmic
background radiation plotted in galactic coordinates, with red cooler and blue and violet
hotter (Ref). This dipole anisotropy is because of the Doppler effect. If the Earth moves with
respect to the microwave background, it will be blue shifted to a higher effective temperature
in the direction of the Earth's motion and red shifted to a lower effective temperature in the
direction opposite the Earth's motion.

The indication of the above image is that the local group of galaxies, to which the Earth
belongs, is moving at about 600 km/s with respect to the background radiation. It is not know
why the Earth is moving with such a high velocity relative to the background radiation.
Evidence for the Big Bang

The cosmic background radiation (sometimes called the CBR), is the afterglow of the big
bang, cooled to a faint whisper in the microwave spectrum by the expansion of the Universe
for 15 billion years (which causes the radiation originally produced in the big bang to redshift
to longer wavelengths). As shown in the adjacent intensity map of the background radiation
in different directions taken by the Differential Microwave Radiometer on NASA's COBE
satellite, it is not completely uniform, though it is very nearly so (Ref). To obtain this image,
the average dipole anisotropy exhibited in the image above has been subtracted out, since it
represents a Doppler shift due to the Earth's motion. Thus, what remains should represent true
variations in the temperature of the background radiation.

In this image, red denotes hotter fluctuations and blue and black denote cooler fluctuations
around the average. These fluctuations are extremely small, representing deviations from the
average of only about 1/100,000 of the average temperature of the observed background
radiation.

Problems with the Uniformity

The highly isotropic nature of the cosmic background radiation indicates that the early stages
of the Universe were almost completely uniform. This raises two problems for the big bang
theory.

First, when we look at the microwave background coming from widely separated parts of the
sky it can be shown that these regions are too separated to have been able to communicate
with each other even with signals travelling at light velocity. Thus, how did they know to
have almost exactly the same temperature? This general problem is called the horizon
problem.

Second, the present Universe is homogenous and isotropic, but only on very large scales. For
scales the size of superclusters and smaller the luminous matter in the universe is quite
lumpy, as illustrated in the following figure.

Thus, the discovery of small deviations from smoothness (anisotopies) in the cosmic
microwave background is welcome, for it provides at least the possibility for the seeds
around which structure formed in the later Universe. However, as we shall see, we are still far
from a quantitative understanding of how this came to be.

The Hot Big Bang

The big bang starts off with a state of extremely high density and pressure for the Universe.
Under those conditions, the Universe is dominated by radiation. This means that the majority
of the energy is in the form of photons and other massless or nearly massless particles (like
neutrinos) that move at near the speed of light. As the big bang evolves in time, the
temperature drops rapidly as the Universe expands and the average velocity of particles
decreases.
Finally, one reaches a state where the energy of the Universe is primarily contained in non-
relativistic matter (matter sufficiently massive that its average velocity is very much less than
the speed of light). This is called a matter dominated universe. The early Universe was
radiation dominated, but the present Universe is matter dominated. Let us now give a brief
description of the most important events in the big bang.

The Cast of Characters for the Big Bang

The primary cast of characters includes:

1. Photons ("particles" of light)

2. Protons and neutrons
3. Electrons and their antiparticles the positrons
4. Neutrinos and their antiparticles the antineutrinos

Because of the equivalence of mass and energy in the Special Theory of Relativity, in a
radiation dominated era the particles and their antiparticles are continuously undergoing
reactions in which they annihilate each other, and photons can collide and create particle and
antiparticle pairs. One says that under these conditions the radiation and the matter are in
thermal equilibrium because they can freely convert back and forth.

Let us now follow the approximate sequence of events that took place in the big bang in
terms of the time since the expansion begins.

At this stage the temperature is about 100 billion Kelvin and the density is more than a billion
times that of water. The Universe is expanding rapidly and is very hot; it consists of an
undifferentiated soup of matter and radiation in thermal equilibrium. This temperature
corresponds to an average energy of the particles of about 8.6 MeV (million electron-Volts).
The electrons and positrons are in equilibrium with the photons, the neutrinos and
antineutrinos are in equilibrium with the photons, antineutrinos are combining with protons to
form positrons and neutrons, and neutrinos are combining with neutrons to form electrons
and protons. At this stage the number of protons is about equal to the number of neutrons.
Now the temperature has dropped to several times 10 billion Kelvin and the density is a little
over 10 million times that of water as the Universe continues to expand. Because a free
neutron is slightly less stable than a free proton, neutrons beta decay to protons plus electrons
plus neutrinos with a half-life of approximately 17 minutes. Thus, the initial approximately
equal balance between neutrons and protons begins to be tipped in favor of protons. By this
time about 62% of the nucleons are protons and 38% are neutrons.

The free neutron is unstable, but neutrons in composite nuclei can be stable, so the decay of
neutrons will continue until the simplest nucleus (deuterium, the mass-2 isotope of hydrogen)
can form. But no composite nuclei can form yet because the temperature implies an average
energy for particles in the gas of about 2.6 MeV, and deuterium has a binding energy of only
2.2 MeV and so cannot hold together at these temperatures. This barrier to production of
composite nuclei, which allows the free neutrons to be steadily converted to protons, is called
the deuterium bottleneck.
The temperature has dropped to about 10 billion K as the Universe continues to expand, and
the density is now down to about 400,000 times that of water. At this temperature the
neutrinos cease to play a role in the continuing evolution, but the deuterium bottleneck still
exists so there are no composite nuclei and the neutrons continue to beta decay to protons. At
this stage the protons abundance is up to 76% and the neutron abundance has fallen to 24%.
The temperature has now fallen to about 3 billion K. The average energy of the particles in

the gas has fallen to about 0.25 MeV. This is too low for photons to produce electron-positron
pairs so they fall out of thermal equilibrium and the free electrons begin to annihilate all the
positrons to form photons. The deuterium bottleneck still keeps appreciable deuterium from
forming and the neutrons continue to decay to protons. At this stage the abundance of
neutrons has fallen to about 13% and the abundance of protons has risen to about 87%.
Finally the temperature drops sufficiently low (about 1 billion K) that deuterium nuclei can
hold together. The deuterium bottleneck is thus broken and a rapid sequence of nuclear
reactions combines neutrons and protons to form deuterium, and the resulting deuterium with
neutrons and protons to form the mass-4 isotope of helium (alpha particles). Thus, all
remaining free neutrons are rapidly "cooked" into helium. Elements beyond helium-4 cannot
be formed because of the peculiarity that there are no stable mass-5 or mass-8 isotopes in our
Universe and the next steps in the most likely reactions to form heavier elements would form
mass-5 or mass-8 isotopes.
The temperature is now about 300 million K and the Universe consists of protons, the excess
electrons that did not annihilate with the positrons, helium-4 (26% abundance by mass),
photons, neutrinos, and antineutrinos. There are no atoms yet because the temperature is still
too high for the protons and electrons to bind together.
The temperature has fallen to several thousand K, which is sufficiently low that electrons and
protons can hold together to begin forming hydrogen atoms. Until this point, matter and
radiation have been in thermal equilibrium, but now they decouple. As the free electrons are
bound up in atoms the primary cross section leading to the scattering of photons (interaction
with the free electrons) is removed and the Universe (which has been very opaque until this
point) becomes transparent: light can now travel large distances before being absorbed.

Production of the Light Elements in the Big Bang

One important success of the big bang model has been in describing the abundance of light
elements such as hydrogen, helium, and lithium in the Universe. These elements are produced
in the big bang, and to some degree in stars. Analysis of the oldest stars, which contain
material that is the least altered from that produced originally in the big bang, indicate
abundances that are in very good agreement with the predictions of the hot big bang.

One particularly sensitive test involves the abundance of deuterium. Because deuterium has a
nucleus that is very weakly bound compared with most nuclei, it is very sensitive to the
conditions in which it is formed (as we have just seen): if the temperatures are too high,
deuterium breaks apart, and it can only be formed when there are free neutrons to combine
with protons. Detailed analysis of the deuterium abundance gives very strong support to the
hot big bang picture.

The Steady State Model

The big bang model had an early challenger that was called the steady state model. The
steady state model did the cosmological principle one better by invoking what has been
termed the perfect cosmological principle: Not only is the Universe the same at all places and
in all directions when averaged over a large enough volume; it is the same for all time too.
Since the Universe was known to be expanding, the steady state model had to postulate
continuous creation of matter in the space between the stars and galaxies to maintain the
same density over time and thus satisfy the perfect cosmological principle of a universe
unchanging in time on large scales. This violates the law of mass-energy conservation, but
the rate of mass creation that is required is far too small to be detectable by any conceivable
experiment, so it cannot be ruled out experimentally (the rate that is required is to create
approximately 1 hydrogen atom per cubic centimeter every 1015 years).

The Triumph of the Big Bang

For a time, the steady state theory and the big bang theory competed with each other, but
eventually observations all but ruled out the steady state theory while providing strong
support for the big bang. Probably the two most important observations were

1. Deep space radio telescope observations (which therefore peered far back in time
because of the finite speed of light) indicating that the early Universe looked very
different from the present Universe. For example, there appear to be more quasars at
great distances, implying that there were more quasars in the early Universe than the
present one. This contradicted the steady state hypothesis that the Universe was
unchanging over time on large scales.
2. The discovery of the cosmic microwave background to be discussed shortly, that
appeared to permeate all of space. This was an expected consquence of the big bang
model, but was very difficult to explain in any simple way in the steady state theory.
As a consequence of these and other findings, the steady state theory is no longer
considered viable by most astronomers.

REFRENCES:
 Fundamental forces in physics
 www.amezon.com