THE BASIC THEORY UNDERLYING THE QUASI-STEADY-STATE COSMOLOGY

Outside cosmology, the procedure normally followed in science requires the integration of hyperbolic partial differential equations subject to initial data given on a free surface, which is usually taken to be a time section of spacetime. The initial data are determined in experi mental science from observation and the results of the integrations ar e also checked by observations. Friedmann (Big Bang) cosmology suffers , however, from the fact that the observations cannot determine initia l conditions. Thus in that theory the initial conditions have only the weak status of guesses. There is also some question whether the corre ct equations are being used, since the gravitational equations of that cosmology are not scale invariant, a situation unlike the rest of phy sics. Since matter exists in what is supposed to be a space of finite temporal duration its origin should be explained, working from a suita ble lagrangian and action. Otherwise the origin is placed outside scie nce. This is what is done in Big Bang cosmology. In this paper we depa rt from the standard procedure by first deriving gravitational equatio ns that are scale invariant, whence it is shown that in a scale invari ant gravitational theory particles have the property that the two leng ths associated with them, the Compton wavelength and gravitational rad ius, must be comparable, i.e. they are Planck particles. It is then sh own that the theory has the scope to explain the genesis of the so-cal led cosmological constant, and the usually required magnitude of the c osmological constant is derived. When interactions other than gravitat ion are included, Planck particles are unstable. The effect of instabi lity on newly created Planck particles is to introduce terms into the gravitational equations additional to those of general relativity. In particular, there are negative pressure terms which act to expand the universe. The energy terms are such as to suggest that particle creati on must be of an explosive nature and that it must occur in the neighb ourhoods of highly compacted bodies, a property which appears to provi de a connection between cosmological theory and high-energy astrophysi cs.