Scientists propose that gravitational waves shaped the universe. Their model challenges inflation theory.
How exactly did the universe start, and how did these processes determine its formation and evolution?
A recent study published in Physical Review Research takes on this challenge, as researchers from Spain and Italy introduced a new model to explain what happened immediately after the universe’s birth. Their work has the potential to question long-accepted ideas about the universe’s earliest moments and how those events influenced its later evolution.
To investigate, the team ran a series of computer simulations designed to test alternatives to the “inflation” theory, which proposes that the universe underwent a rapid expansion during the first fraction of a second after it formed. According to the inflation model, multiple factors must align to make such an expansion possible, making it a complex and still-debated explanation.
A new role for gravitational waves
The researchers instead suggest that gravitational waves, a phenomenon predicted by general relativity, could account for the formation of the universe and everything within it, from galaxies and stars to planets and life itself. They place these waves within the framework of De Sitter space, a mathematical model named after Dutch mathematician Willem De Sitter, who collaborated with Albert Einstein in the 1920s to explore the structure of the cosmos.
“For decades, we have tried to understand the early moments of the Universe using models based on elements we have never observed”, said Dr. Raúl Jiménez, who studies experimental sciences & mathematics at ICREA in Spain and is a co-author on the study. “What makes this proposal exciting is its simplicity and verifiability. We are not adding speculative elements but rather demonstrating that gravity and quantum mechanics may be sufficient to explain how the structure of the cosmos came into being”.
Gravitational waves through history
First proposed in 1893 and 1905 by Oliver Heaviside and Henri Poincaré, respectively, gravitational waves received a huge boost in attention in 1916 when Albert Einstein proposed them to be ripples in the space-time continuum as part of his general theory or relativity.
Despite myriads of sources, including supernovae, black holes, and neutron stars, gravitational waves are incredibly difficult to detect and require very sensitive instruments. This is potentially why gravitational waves were not detected until September 2015 by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) observatory, which have locations in Washington and Louisiana.
The origin of the universe remains one of the biggest mysteries in science, as the Big Bang has long been theorized to have been the catalyst for the origin of the universe. Despite ongoing scientific breakthroughs and advancements, scientists remain puzzled regarding the origins of the universe, and especially what might have happened before the Big Bang.
Searching for cosmic understanding
Carl Sagan famously said, “The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.”
We may never know exactly how the universe began and the processes responsible for you reading this article right now. But like the simplicity this study presents, perhaps this study is simply a way for us to know the universe itself a little bit better.
What new discoveries about the origins of the universe will researchers make in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!
As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!
Reference: “Inflation without an inflaton” by Daniele Bertacca, Raul Jimenez, Sabino Matarrese and Angelo Ricciardone, 8 July 2025, Physical Review Research.
DOI: 10.1103/vfny-pgc2
Adapted from an article originally published on Universe Today.
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31 Comments
‘Thrombus-Effect’
Einstein said that human stupidity is infinite. Why should we jump to conclusions? Just when we think we have the answer, we find a answer that is either better or stupider. I’m just saying, if we really want to find the answer, we need technology advancement rather than coming up with crazy theories. On second thought, climate change will destroy the planet before we are ever certain with our answer.
On what planet,6 days on Earth or 6 days on Pluto.
Einstein said that human stupidity is infinite. Why should we jump to conclusions? Just when we think we have the answer, we find a answer that is either better or stupider. I’m just saying, if we really want to find the answer, we need technology advancement rather than coming up with crazy theories. On second thought, climate change will destroy the planet before we are ever certain with our answer. Blobfish are truly amazing creatures.
“The researchers instead suggest that gravitational waves, a phenomenon predicted by general relativity, could account for the formation of the universe and everything within it, from galaxies and stars to planets and life itself.”
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Gravitational waves still don’t explain what created the individual quantum/atomic particles and what defined all the laws that control their actions and interactions.
True, Gravitational Waves do not explain those things. But knowing that means we can strive to find out.
Ignorance is a temporary hindrance, unlike unfounded confidence which is a permanent condition.
It was God Almighty in Heaven, hallowed be thy name!
Our Universe was Created! Stop just thinking a ” BANG? ” Ah big one happened in interstellar space and wah-la!!! Planets, Quasar, Star’s, Galaxies, Nebula’s, Black Hole’s and more just appeared outta a Big Bang? As intelligent as the science and astrology circles are I can’t believe your still going with the Big Bang theory??? It’s a TV show y’all!!! Question when #BIGGOD show’s up What then? I’m waiting for the responses and ridicule as well. ABeliever
Nature could just be. Or as the mainstream slow roll inflation naturally leads to eternal inflation, it could always have existed.
Your comment predictably lead to speculations in organized superstition, but since the space expansion process that produces the universe is entirely natural those could be said to be immoral lies.
Math is squiggles, pencils make. To reduce the wild and wiggly thought process to its most simple possible set of abstracts. But always, math becomes a set idea – and is never the universe many are hoping to find.
“Quantum” is quantizing – putting numbers forth – to represent some imagined aspect – in order to make math of it.
The math is about past ideas – when – the universe is something else.
God is infinitely complex. I don’t appreciate this silly speculation that pretends gid does not exist.
The non-existence of magic is not a speculation, it is an observed fact.
God in this new scenario for the creation of the cosmos is:
Gravity, origin, diameter.
Perfect!
The universe is something else since it is physics, not math. You can’t found physics in math, you need observations and tests.
There has always been speculation about origin of universe since humans started looking at heavens. Lots of theories were generated accepted and proved erroneous as science got advanced. It is my personal opinion that until human species becomes multi galactic species the knowledge will be advanced to explain multiuniverse and their existence and evolution. Till then I am just learning as curious observer. The chase of truth is relentless and the journey is fascinating.
“Quantum” – the allure; but ya know, sitting around thinking some abstract, as such, is the progenitor of the Universe is some chutzpah.
Eternal inflation, as an example, is mostly classical physics (the slow roll). So the progenitor could be “classical” in that sense.
But of course it is quantum physical in its basic nature.
This article basically has no content.
Just saying that “gravitational waves could account for the formation of the universe and everything within it” with no explanation or context is empty.
God is the creator of all the heaven and earth. It can be explained by science unless they add God into the equation! Once they realize that it will become crystal clear. They are way to intelligent to be so ignorant. I mean come on, God created everything in just 6 days,That would definitely earn the title of a big bang in My eyes. I mean imagine earth creating itself in a matter of just minutes, nope not possible. Now imagine God creating it. It’s possible. It’s true.
Well it is said in the old testament that a day of the lord is a thousand years,
Assuming of course, you want to believe in God’s.
The universe was never created. Think about it, if there is a God who is assumed to have always existed, it took him a long time, an eternity, to come up with the idea of the universe. Why so long??
I live with fairies in the local woodland.
Even if there was no research paper that has the explanations you ask for – you should know that you are on a popular science site that relates science – it would be much less empty than the commenting supports for organized superstition.
We will kill the planet before we get to that point….
Mathematics as well as information are non material.
But you materialist keep looking for a material answer
Mathematics is a tool for science of nature.
Which some philosophers, who know nothing of nature despite a 3,000 year history but no testable result, calls “materialist”. They may have science envy.
The James Webb Telescope has already Nuked that Theory for good! Time to bury its ashes now.
The Webb telescope has not said much on inflation, which this paper treats.
Possibly it adds cosmic web structure data that could successfully test inflation. Else it is the Atacama Cosmology Telescope that did that in its last survey. [“Constraints on extensions to LCDM: Calabrese, Hill, Jense, La Posta et al, 2025.”]
The idea of an expanding universe says that the space between stars is stretching. But why should that stretching not continue till the space within matter itself. If so, then all objects will be getting proportionally larger, so there would not be an apparent stretching of space.!
Bound objects do not stretch – else you would grow longer over the years. You are held together by molecular bonds, as is Earth itself. On larger scales it is gravity that can counteract the cosmological effect of space expansion.
Even the weak pull of gravity suffice to hold the Local Group of galaxies bound against the so called “Hubble flow” expansion of space. “The galaxies of the Local Group are likely to merge together under their own mutual gravitational attractions over a timescale of tens of billions of years into a single elliptical galaxy, with the coalescence of Andromeda and the Milky Way being the predominant event in this process.[41]” [Wikipedia]
The “apparent stretching of space” hence show up on larger scales than the Local Group, which is about 10 million light years across. Cosmologists look at distances of 100 million years and larger for this, by observing increasing cosmological redshifts of the there emitted light that reaches us – a primary evidence for “big bang” expansion.
Since the paper supports an inflation era, it doesn’t challenge the theory or the current observations. What it does is to hypothesize an obscure thermodynamic effect of de Sitter space and that its dynamic effective vacuum energy density replaces the mainstream slow roll scalar field inflation mechanism.
The complicated – so unlikely – notions have some putative observable effects on the cosmic background radiation (and consequently at later times the cosmic web of filaments) spectrum, so if it is successful it could replace the simpler mainstream mechanism. But since the latter now has an analog in the Nobel Prize winning Higgs field mechanism, I wouldn’t hold my breath.