The findings of the James Webb telescope from the TGD point of view

The findings of the James Webb telescope have revolutionized the views about galaxy formation in the early Universe. I have commented these findings briefly in "Some anomalies of astrophysics and cosmology" (see this) but have not found time for further comments.

Scientific American has an article with title "JWST's First Glimpses of Early Galaxies Could Break Cosmology" (see this), which provide a nice summary of the first findings of the telescope. This gave an opportunity to sharpen the somewhat fuzzy view of how the findings of James Webb telescope relate to TGD.

What was found first, was a galaxy dubbed as "GLASS-z13". It was found by Rohan Naidu and led to an article published within a few days. The discovery of the GLASS-z13 was followed by a discovery by numerous even more distant galaxies. The very existence and the properties of these galaxies came as a total surprise.

1. From the redshift of about z=13, the GLASS-z13 was dated back 300 million years after the big bang that is thought to have occured 13.8 billion years ago. According to the standard view of galaxy formation (so called Lambda CDM model involving dark matter as exotic particles), galaxies with such a large distance are not expected to even exist. According to the standard model, the formation of galaxies should have begun at the cosmic age of about 400 million years. The galaxy found by Naidu would have emerged more than 70 millions years too early.
2. The images of the galaxies from so early era were expected to be extremely dim. The galaxies discovered were however anomalously bright.
3. The large size of the galaxies came as a total surprise. The age of the galaxies increases with its age and the conclusion was that the galaxies had to be much more mature than the standard model for the formation of galaxies allows. This leads to a paradox since the first galaxies should be very young.

During the years, I have developed a TGD based model of galaxy formation. The model is supported by the ability to explain the increasing number of anomalies of the standard model (see for instance this and this).

Monopole flux tubes are the basic element of the TGD view of galaxy formation. They are present in all length scales in the TGD Universe and distinguish TGD from both Maxwell's electrodynamics and general relativity.

1. Flux tubes can carry monopole flux, in which case they are highly stable. The cross section is not a disk but a closed 2-surface so that no current is needed to create the magnetic flux. The flux tubes with vanishing flux are not stable against splitting.
2. Flux tubes relate to the model for the emergence of galaxies (see this and this) and explain galactic jets propagating along flux tubes (see this). Dark energy and possible matter assignable to the cosmic strings predicts correctly the flat velocity spectrum of stars around galaxies.
3. In the MOND model it is assumed that the gravitational force transforms for certain critical acceleration from 1/r² to 1/r force. In TGD this would mean that the 1/ρ force caused by the cosmic string would begin to dominate over the 1/ρ² force (ρ denotes transversal distance from string). The predictions of MOND TGD are different since in TGD the motion takes place in the plane orthogonal to the cosmic string.
4. The flux tubes can appear as torus-like circular loops. Also flux tube pairs carrying opposite fluxes, resembling a DNA double strand, are possible and might be favoured by stability. Flux tubes are possible in all scales and connect astrophysical structures to a fractal quantum network. The flux tubes could connect to each other nodes, which are deformations of membrane-like entities having 3-D M^4 projections and 2-D E³ projections (time= constant) (also an example of "non-Einsteinian" space-time surface).
5. Pairs of monopole flux tubes with opposite direction of fluxes can connect two objects: this could serve as a prerequisite of entanglement. The splitting of a flux tube pair to a pair of U-shaped flux tubes by a reconnection in a state function reduction destroying the entanglement. Reconnection would play an essential role in bio-catalysis.
6. Flux tube pairs can form helical structures and stability probably requires helical structure. Cosmic analog of DNA could be in question: fractality and gravitational quantum coherence in arbitrarily long scales are a basic prediction of TGD so that monopole flux tubes should appear in all scales. Also flux tubes inside flux tubes inside and hierarchical coilings as for DNA are possible.

Could one understand the paradoxical findings in the TGD view of galaxy formation?

1. According to the standard model, these galaxies were formed quite too early. The standard mechanism of formation is a gravitational condensation of stars and interstellar to form galaxies. Dark matter halo plays a key role in the process. The model is however plagued by several contradictions. As a matter of fact, empirical facts suggest that there is no dark halo. The MOND model explains many of the anomalies but is in conflict with the Equivalence Principle and in conflict with standard Newtonian gravitation. The TGD based model replaces dark matter halo with long cosmic strings carrying dark energy and possibly also dark matter. One does not lose either Equivalence Principle or Newtonian gravitation.

   The TGD based view of galaxy formation is diametrically opposite to the standard view, being analogous to the generation of ordinary matter via the decay of the inflation field in the inflationary cosmology. Ordinary matter would have been created by the decay of the energy of cosmic strings to ordinary matter as they formed tangles. This led to a thickening of cosmic strings to monopole flux tubes and to a reduction of string tension so that energy was liberated as ordinary matter. In particular, galactic dark matter and the flat velocity spectrum of distant stars find an elegant explanation.

   In this view galaxies started to emerge already during the TGD analogue of the inflationary period.

2. The high apparent luminosity of these galaxies is the second mystery. Are the galaxies indeed so luminous as they seem to be? Or could it be that the standard view of how light emitted by galaxies is distributed is somehow wrong?

   In the TGD framework, the space-time of general relativity is replaced with a fractal network of nodes defined by various structures including galaxies, stars, planets,... Monopole magnetic flux tubes connect the nodes and the light propages as beams of dark photons (in the TGD sense) along these flux tubes. A light beam travelling along a flux tube is not attenuated at all if the cross section of the flux tube stays constant. Therefore the intensity of the light beam is not reduced with distance. In GRT it would be reduced since there would be no splitting to beams. This would explain why the apparent luminosities of the galaxies are anomalously high.

3. The unexpectedly large size of the galaxies implies a long age if one believes in the standard view of galactic evolution. This paradox finds a solution in zero energy ontology (ZEO), which defines the ontology of quantum TGD. ZEO solves the basic paradox of quantum measurement theory and is forced by the holography implied in the TGD framework by 4-D general coordinate invariance.

   In ZEO, the arrow of time changes in ordinary quantum jumps ("big" state function reductions, BSFRs). The repeated change of the arrow of time in the sequence of BSFRs implies that the system can be said to live forth and back in geometric time. Aging does not correspond to "center of mass motion" in time direction but this forth and back motion. In the TGD inspired biology, BSFR is analogous to death or falling asleep.

   In "small" SFRs (SSFRs) the arrow of time is not changed and they are counterparts of weak measurements introduced by quantum opticians. They generalize the quantum measurements associated with the Zeno effect, in which a system is frozen and its state does not change. Now the sequence of SSFRs would define a conscious entity, self.

   In TGD, gravitational quantum coherence is possible in all scales and galaxies would be astrophysical quantum systems performing BSFRs. Even astrophysical objects such as galaxies would live forth and back in time. This would give rise to galaxies and stars older than the Universe if one tries to explain their age using the standard view of the relationship between experienced time and geometric time.

See the article Some anomalies of astrophysics and cosmology or the chapter TGD View of the Engine Powering Jets from Active Galactic Nuclei .

For a summary of earlier postings see Latest progress in TGD.

Articles related to TGD.