'Virtual particles' is a crap name.
They're real, and they aren't particles.
profmattstrassler.com
Inflationary epoch
Ethan Davis
Cameron Green
Would you mind explaining further? Specifically on why it's wrong and how dark matter clustering influenced it?
Jonathan Russell
>Dark matter clusters together
>Increased gravitational pull in those regions
>Causes galaxies to form in those same regions
Dominic Lee
Inflation would have spread all of that dark matter apart though, wouldn't it?
Easton Powell
Gravity has an infinite range.
Jaxson Cooper
Are you taking about the horizon problem?
Brody Peterson
But unless that dark matter had the same kind of thing I'm talking about with virtual particles happen during inflation the dark matter would have been spread uniformly and have the same force of gravity on it from every direction, right?
Ayden Ross
Hmmm, maybe.
Michael Hernandez
He's right. A perfectly homogenous universe would not allow for any matter to form. Fluctuations created local pockets of slightly more dense and sparse regions, which then got inflated.
Landon Roberts
>Which then got inflated
Yes, but what the hell does that actually mean? What was the actual mechanism? How and why did the virtual particles matter when they usually annihilate immediately? Did inflation literally pull them apart so they couldn't annihilate?