The role of exotic resonances in the early universe

[Loren Booda]

Did the era prior to decoupling experience abundant particle resonances that are now rare? Were there then composite and stable entities, like atoms, constructed from these particles? What would the lifetimes of the resonances be, given that their optimum surrounding conditions remained constant? What correlations can be drawn between the particle physics of then and now?

 

[Haelfix]

Thats a good question, and its a hard one b/c the physics in that epoch is all over the place as the temperature goes up. Different regimes will feel different exotic processes.

We have a fairly good understanding of how things behave in certain intervals, (some in the far past, some in the close to reionization epochs) but not the whole things.

In general its the dominant processes that people have somewhat of a handle on, b/c often they leave measurable consequences somewhere down the chain. But I mean, some of the regimes are active research areas today even in particle physics (like quark-gluon plasmas), its obviously very difficult to get a full grasp of the consequences since we don't have a time machine.