The Hidden Universe

We continue our series of excerpts (and discussion) from the outstanding survey paper by George F. R. Ellis, Issues in the Philosophy of Cosmology.

Thesis B6: Observational horizons limit our ability to observationally determine the very large scale geometry of the universe.
We can only see back to the time of decoupling of matter and radiation, and so have no direct information about earlier times; and unless we live in a “small universe”, most of the matter in the universe is hidden behind the visual horizon.  Conjectures as to its geometry on larger scales cannot be observationally tested.  The situation is completely different in the small universe case: then we can see everything there is in the universe, including our own galaxy at earlier times.

What an intriguing idea.  If the entire universe (or the self-contained section we find ourselves in) is substantially smaller than the distance light has traveled since the universe became transparent to radiation (“decoupling”, about 380,000 years after the Big Bang), we might be able to see our Milky Way galaxy (and other galaxies) at various points in the past.

The key point here is that unless we live in a small universe, the universe itself is much bigger than the observable universe.  There are many galaxies—perhaps an infinite number—at a greater distance than the horizon, that we cannot observe by any electromagnetic radiation.  Furthermore, no causal influence can reach us from matter more distant than our particle horizon—the distance light can have travelled since the creation of the universe, so this is the furthest matter with which we can have had any causal connection.  We can hope to obtain information on matter lying between the visual horizon and the particle horizon by neutrino or gravitational radiation observatories; but we can obtain no reliable information whatever about what lies beyond the particle horizon.  We can in principle feel the gravitational effect of matter beyond the horizon because of the force it exerts (for example, matter beyond the horizon may influence velocities of matter within the horizon, even though we cannot see it).  This is possible because of the constraint equations of general relativity theory, which are in effect instantaneous equations valid on spacelike surfaces.  However we cannot uniquely decode that signal to determine what matter distribution outside the horizon caused it: a particular velocity field might be caused by a relatively small mass near the horizon, or a much larger mass much further away.  Claims about what conditions are like on very large scales—that is, much bigger than the Hubble scale—are unverifiable, for we have no observational evidence as to what conditions are like far beyond the visual horizon.  The situation is like that of an ant surveying the world from the top of a sand dune in the Sahara desert.  Her world model will be a world composed only of sand dunes—despite the existence of cities, oceans, forests, tundra, mountains, and so on beyond her horizon.

Let us now define some terms that Ellis uses above.

visual horizon – the distance beyond which the universe was still opaque to photons due to high temperature and density

particle horizon – the distance beyond which light has not yet had time to reach us in all the time since the Big Bang; our particle horizon is, therefore, farther away than our visual horizon

spacelike surface – a three-dimensional surface in four-dimensional space-time where no event on the surface lies in the past or future of any other event on that surface; every point on the surface as it exists at one instant of time

Hubble scale – a cosmological distance unit equal to the reciprocal of the Hubble constant times the speed of light; see derivation below

A reasonable value for the Hubble constant H0 is 70 km/s/Mpc.  A galaxy one megaparsec distant has a cosmological recession velocity of 70 km/s, two megaparsecs distant 140 km/s, and so on.

You may notice that there are two units of distance in H0: kilometers and megaparsecs.  We can thus rewrite H0 in units of s-1 (reciprocal seconds of time) as follows:

The Hubble time is defined as the inverse of the Hubble constant:

Converting this into more convenient units of years, we get

The Hubble scale is now simply the Hubble time multiplied by the speed of light.

Converting this into more convenient distance units of light years, and then parsecs, we get

As Ellis says, we are like ants in the Sahara desert that cannot see their Earth-universe beyond the sand dunes.  Like the ant, is there a limit to our intellect as well?

References
Ellis, G. F. R. 2006, Issues in the Philosophy of Cosmology, Philosophy of Physics (Handbook of the Philosophy of Science), Ed. J. Butterfield and J. Earman (Elsevier, 2006), 1183-1285.
[http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0602280]

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