Cosmic time, or cosmological time, is the

time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...

coordinate In geometry, a coordinate system is a system that uses one or more numbers, or coordinates, to uniquely determine the position of the points or other geometric elements on a manifold such as Euclidean space. The order of the coordinates is sign ...

commonly used in the Big Bang models of

physical cosmology Physical cosmology is a branch of cosmology concerned with the study of cosmological models. A cosmological model, or simply cosmology, provides a description of the largest-scale structures and dynamics of the universe and allows study of f ...

. Such time coordinate may be defined for a homogeneous, expanding universe so that the universe has the same

density Density (volumetric mass density or specific mass) is the substance's mass per unit of volume. The symbol most often used for density is ''ρ'' (the lower case Greek letter rho), although the Latin letter ''D'' can also be used. Mathematical ...

everywhere at each moment in time (the fact that this is possible means that the universe is, by definition, homogeneous). The

clock A clock or a timepiece is a device used to measure and indicate time. The clock is one of the oldest human inventions, meeting the need to measure intervals of time shorter than the natural units such as the day, the lunar month and t ...

s measuring cosmic time should move along the

Hubble flow Hubble's law, also known as the Hubble–Lemaître law, is the observation in physical cosmology that galaxies are moving away from Earth at speeds proportional to their distance. In other words, the farther they are, the faster they are moving a ...

. Cosmic time

t

is a measure of time by a physical clock with zero peculiar velocity in the absence of matter over-/under-densities (to prevent time dilation due to relativistic effects or confusions caused by expansion of the universe). Unlike other measures of time such as temperature, redshift, particle horizon, or Hubble horizon, the cosmic time (similar and complementary to the comoving coordinates) is blind to the expansion of the universe. There are two main ways for establishing a reference point for the cosmic time. The most trivial way is to take the present time as the cosmic reference point (sometimes referred to as the ''lookback time''). Alternatively, the Big Bang may be taken as reference to define

t

as the age of the universe, also known as time since the big bang. The current physical cosmology estimates the present age as 13.8 billion years.How Old is the Universe?
/ref> The

t=0

doesn't necessarily have to correspond to a physical event (such as the

cosmological singularity A gravitational singularity, spacetime singularity or simply singularity is a condition in which gravity is so intense that spacetime itself breaks down catastrophically. As such, a singularity is by definition no longer part of the regular sp ...

) but rather it refers to the point at which the scale factor would vanish for a standard cosmological model such as ΛCDM. For instance, in the case of inflation, i.e. a non-standard cosmology, the hypothetical moment of big bang is still determined using the benchmark cosmological models which may coincide with the end of the inflationary epoch. For technical purposes, concepts such as the average temperature of the universe (in units of eV) or the particle horizon are used when the early universe is the objective of a study since understanding the interaction among particles is more relevant than their time coordinate or age. Cosmic time is the standard time coordinate for specifying the Friedmann–Lemaître–Robertson–Walker solutions of

Einstein field equations In the general theory of relativity, the Einstein field equations (EFE; also known as Einstein's equations) relate the geometry of spacetime to the distribution of matter within it. The equations were published by Einstein in 1915 in the form ...

Notes

References

* * {{Portal bar, Mathematics, Astronomy, Stars, Outer space, Science Physical cosmology Coordinate systems Time

See also

Notes

References