While I was reading a similar question asking if other galaxy could be made of antimatter, to which the answer was: if they were, we should detect the radiation from matter interacting with antimatter on that sort of scale. But what if the missing antimatter lies outside the observable universe. Wouldn't that result in the matter dominated observable universe we live in, without any of the radiation from the antimatter lying outside it being detected?
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asked Apr 24, 2015 at 0:25
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$\begingroup$ If antimatters do lie outside of observable universe it will solve the "why is there so little antimatter?" then it also raise questions like why universe is not homogeneous? why we even existed? That's just my opinion lol. $\endgroup$– user6760Commented Apr 24, 2015 at 1:18
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1$\begingroup$ Well, the universe could still be homogeneous on an infinite scale. The universe is clearly not perfectly homogeneous because you have little clumps of matter (galaxies), and then empty space in between them. $\endgroup$– smallest_weird_numberCommented Apr 24, 2015 at 1:22
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$\begingroup$ This is related to the idea of a multi-verse. It would need some way of the asymmetry to vary during inflation. I'm guessing there are some models that could do this, but haven't looked into it in too much detail. $\endgroup$– VirgoCommented Apr 24, 2015 at 2:03
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$\begingroup$ @user6760 The universe could be homogeneous. What if this is just a statistical artifact from the first seconds of the universe. Like matter was slightly more likely to end up on one part of the early Universe and anti-matter at a different region. By now those regions could lie outside of the event horizon as they are moving apart at the speed if light due to the expansion of space allows object. $\endgroup$– MarvMindCommented Mar 2, 2017 at 15:48
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3 Answers
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The problem with talking about things that lie outside the observable universe is that they are, by definition, not observable. There could be invisible pink unicorns out there, and you cannot prove they don't exist.
So yes, it is possible the missing antimatter lies outside the observable universe, but in itself this is not a powerful statement. You need something more: a mechanism to explain why all the antimatter got "out there". If the mechanism is well-motivated, makes testable predictions within the observable universe, and is eventually accepted as true, then it might solve the baryon asymmetry problem as well.
In the same way, we rely on GR to calculate what happens within the event horizon of black holes, and we are reasonably confident in the results even though we cannot observe inside a black hole.
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The accepted model for the universe is the Big Bang. It is accepted because it fits data and observations up to now very well, using General Relativity and the standard model of particle physics .
In this model it is CP ( charge and parity) violation which gives rise to particle antiparticle asymmetry, and since the standard model of particle physics cannot account for this large violation the search is on for extending the standard model. In this case the asymmetry will appear during the time of the baryogenesis, by a microsecond from the origin,.
People propose models where the asymmetry appears as the creation of a universe and an anti universe, as for example here. This would mean that our universe was born with a fixed number of quarks, to make up the large asymmetry. A fine tuning that is not easily acceptable. If no large CP violation is found experimentally in the near and further future, maybe one will have to resort to similar models. At this time, the success of the Big Bang in modeling all known observations leads us to the search for CP violating mechanisms within the universe.
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Your question really breaks down into two elements.
- "Missing" antimatter
- Antimatter galaxies being outside the observable universe.
Presumably, by "missing" you are alluding to the question as to why we observe matter and not antimatter, if for some reason we wish discount CP violation (covered by Anna).
The thing is, having antimatter outside the observable universe does not really help. We expect (barring CP violation) to have equal amounts of matter and antimatter formed in the early universe. We expect this symmetry everywhere in the form of pair production of matter-antimatter particles, say e+ and e-.
The observable universe is defined as the part of the universe from which we can have received signals such as light. Conversely, it is also the part of the universe which can have received signals from us. This means that the antimatter created here cannot have been somehow separated and moved outside the observable universe.
To conclude: The presence of an excess of anti-matter outside the observable universe would not explain the lack of it around here.
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1$\begingroup$ But immediately after the Big Bang and before inflation, wouldn't the observable universe have included the entire universe? Couldn't a small irregularity in the distribution of antimatter at this point have resulted in the large-scale matter world of today? Well, I mean, I know it couldn't, of course, I'm just wondering why. $\endgroup$ Commented Apr 24, 2015 at 15:33
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$\begingroup$ The observable universe is defined as the part of the universe from a signal traveling at light speed can have reached us. Although the universe was indeed "smaller" (but still probably infinite!), there had been a lot less time for a signal to propagate. So, as time progresses the observable universe becomes a "larger" part of the entire universe. $\endgroup$– KeithCommented Apr 26, 2015 at 23:36
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$\begingroup$ @keith No, the observable universe is defined as "Universe comprising all matter that may be observed from Earth at the present time". Shortly after the big bang the observable universe was almost the entire universe. However as the expansion of the Universe accelerates, more galaxies appears to move away at the speed of light (or faster). Those galaxies then lie outside of the observable Universe. So the observable universe becomes a "smaller" part of the entire universe. Hence the presents of anti-matter galaxies outside of the observable universe would explain the lack of it around here. $\endgroup$– MarvMindCommented Mar 2, 2017 at 15:39
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$\begingroup$ The regular particle horizon is without inflation, with inflation there was another particle horizon from before the standard big bang which ought to be larger than the regular one. $\endgroup$– YukterezCommented Aug 13, 2022 at 15:19