A cosmological phase transition is a physical process, whereby the overall state of matter changes together across the whole universe. The success of the Big Bang model led researchers to conjecture possible cosmological phase transitions taking place in the very early universe, at a time when it was much hotter and denser than today.[1][2]
Any cosmological phase transition may have left signals which are observable today, even if it took place in the first moments after the Big Bang, when the universe was opaque to light.[3]
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- ^ Kibble, T. W. B. (1980). "Some implications of a Cosmological Phase Transition". Phys. Rept. 67 (1): 183–199. Bibcode:1980PhR....67..183K. doi:10.1016/0370-1573(80)90091-5.