early Universe

early Universe

The era in the evolution of the Universe soon after the big bang when it was very hot and dense. As the Universe expanded it cooled, giving rise to a sequence of phase transitions associated with broken symmetries. The light elements such as helium were mostly formed in the early Universe. It has been suggested that in the early Universe inflation, i.e. very rapid expansion, occurred. The very early Universe, occurring immediately after the big bang, requires a fundamentally new physics involving the combination of quantum mechanics and general relativity theory before it will be understood.