Abstract
Experimental evidence points with ever increasing confidence towards an evolutionary cosmology. The standard framework used to confront this circumstance is the “hot big bang” theory: an initial classical singularity, possibly smeared by unknown quantum effects, produces a thermal distribution of the quanta of the matter field at a temperature close to the Planck temperature (Tp ≃ 1019 Gev). This state then leads to an approximatively adiabatic free expansion. The model explains the background 2.7°K radiation observed in the presently expanding universe. It predicts, when combined with the known weak interaction physics, a primordial helium abundance in remarkable agreement with experimental data. More recently, the embedding of grand unified gauge theories in the big-bang cosmology has led to a plausible qualitative understanding of the small baryon to photon ratio in our universe.
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Englert, F. (1982). Quantum Field Theory and Cosmology. In: Lévy, M., Basdevant, JL., Speiser, D., Weyers, J., Jacob, M., Gastmans, R. (eds) Fundamental Interactions. NATO Advanced Study Institutes Series, vol 85. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-3551-1_13
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