Dr. Ranga-Ram Chary ( Photo courtesy: www.its.caltech.edu)
I did the following for the popular the diaspora news site www.theindiandiaspora.com
By Mayank Chhaya
As cosmic discoveries go, not much can get bigger than possibly detecting another universe. Observational cosmologist, Dr. Ranga-Ram Chary has been in science headlines lately for a discovery that may well turn out to point at an alternate universe, apart from the one that we live in.
After studying data of a period of the universe barely 270,000 years after the Big Bang some 13.7 billion years ago, Dr. Chary says it is hard to imagine that there is not another universe. A researcher at the U.S. Planck Data Center in Pasadena, California, Dr. Chary, who grew up in Delhi and spent his early years in the Indian capital, has detected a glow in certain regions of the nascent universe that is 4500 times brighter than what theory predicts. One very likely explanation of the glow is that it could be light from a neighboring universe leaking into our own.
The era of the universe, that Dr. Chary studied by using a detailed map of the cosmic microwave background (CMB)* created by the Planck telescope is called recombination. It was a time when electrons and protons combined to create hydrogen and in the process emitted light. While that light would be necessarily faint, what Dr. Chary found were spots that were markedly brighter, prompting the possibility of another universe.
The idea of multiple universes beyond our own has found considerable scientific traction in recent years but it is perhaps the first time a real visual signature an alternate universe has been detected by this 1995 alumnus of the Regional Engineering College (Now called National Institute of Technology), Trichy, India. He earned his Ph.D. in Astronomy & Astrophysics from University of California, Los Angeles, in 1999.
Dr. Chary’s paper describes his work thus: “The properties of our observable Universe have recently been characterized in unprecedented detail through analysis of the cosmic microwave background fluctuations, a relic of the hot Big Bang. The fine-tuning of parameters in the early Universe required to reproduce our present day Universe suggests that our Universe may simply be a region within an eternally inflating super-region.
Many other regions beyond our observable Universe would exist with each such region governed by a different set of physical parameters than the ones we have measured for our Universe. Collision between these regions, if they occur, should leave signatures of anisotropy in the cosmic microwave background but have not yet been seen.”
His conclusion says, “Why these parameters are the values they are is a question that doesn’t have a clear answer. One possibility is there are an infinite set of Universes with different parameters and our Universe just happens to have the values that we measure. Searching for these alternate Universes is a challenge. One hypothesis suggests that as each Universe evolves independently, it may collide with our observable Universe, leaving a signature on the signal we see.”
Dr. Chary answered questions from The Indian Diaspora via email.
Excerpts:
Being a scientist, I know you do not deal in hunches but let us set the mood by asking whether you feel there is another universe.
Dr. Chary: Based on what we know about the properties of our Universe, and the need for inflation and vacuum energy, it is hard to imagine there isn’t. Otherwise, it suggests a very dramatic fine-tuning of parameters.
Your finding suggests an eerie glow indicating matter leaking into our universe from a neighboring one. Is the glow statistical or is it visual in the sense that one can see it?
Dr. Chary : It is visual.
When you began looking at Planck’s map of the cosmic microwave background, did you consciously go into it anticipating a finding like this?
Dr. Chary : No. I knew about the spectral distortions from Hydrogen and how faint they were compared to the data we have but I wanted to check that the estimates were consistent with our data.
Does the fact that you could detect this glow mean that you might have chanced upon another universe while it was still close to our own? (Inflation would have meant they have all gone too far for light to carry enough information to us.)
Dr. Chary: Yes.
I understand that the glow, which is 4500 times brighter than what is theorized, was seen despite the CMB, which normally drowns out light. Is that an accurate description?
Dr. Chary : Not just the CMB, but the galaxy and individual sources.
The existence of alternate universes requires extraordinary proof. In your assessment, how high does your finding rise to prove that?
Dr. Chary : We have one very strong piece of evidence…the regions which are above 5 sigma**. So at least two, may be three regions.
You have followed what I as a non-scientist can only describe as a process of elimination. You filtered out everything including galaxies, stars and stardust and yet you found that the sky looked brighter than it should. When that happened what was your very individual response? Did you feel any sense of exhilaration at what you might be looking at?
Dr. Chary : Rather surprised really. I was expecting pure noise.
Do you ever pause to consider that the existence of alternate universes has the potential to completely upend human certitudes? If you do, how do you deal with it?
Dr. Chary : Its humbling to imagine that our vast Universe is just a chance quantum fluctuation among a multitude of others. But not entirely surprising since we're an ordinary planet around an ordinary star in an ordinary galaxy. So why should our Universe be special?
It is said if an alternate universe or universes exist, they could be home to wholly different kinds of physics. What would be your wildest variety of physics in a neighboring universe?
Dr. Chary : Different fundamental physical constants, like the fine structure and gravitational constant, vacuum energy density, baryon to photon ratio etc.
What kind of process does it take to definitively conclude that what you discovered was indeed light leaking from a neighboring universe soon after the Big Bang?
Dr. Chary : Detecting the other set of Hydrogen recombination lines at 353 GHz or at 60 GHz (the Balmer or Brackett series). It always takes two independent pieces of evidence to have definitive proof.
If there are indeed other universes, did they too originate from the same source as we and popped up as bubbles or there is a possibility that they might have come into being separately?
Dr. Chary : There is no "source". The bubbles are forming out of vacuum energy as space expands. So each bubble is seeded separately at a different time and expands at a different rate. Some may be so dense they just collapse on themselves on a short timescale while others may keep expanding.
If the latter is possible, does that reinforce the idea that the Big Bang was a local occurrence that did not necessarily change the expanse outside?
Dr. Chary : Yes, each bubble may have its own big bang when its time started.
* The cosmic microwave background is the remnant of the thermal radiation from very early universe
** 5 sigma is a measure of scientists’ confidence level that refers to the probability value of a finding at one in about 3.5 million. In simplistic terms, it would be that hard to find something and having found it, its probability increases.
