What is a typical energy of a scattered photon when 2-gev cosmic-ray electrons interact with the photons of the t = 2.73-k cosmic microwave background?
Answers
In cosmology, the cosmic microwave background radiation is a form of electromagnetic radiation discovered in 1965 that fills the entire universe.
It has a thermal 2.725 kelvin black body spectrum which peaks in the microwave range at a frequency of 160.4 GHz, corresponding to a wavelength of 1.9 mm.
Most cosmologists consider this radiation to be the best evidence for the hot big bang model of the universe.
The cosmic microwave background is a prediction of Big Bang theory.
In the theory, the early universe was made up of a hot plasma of photons, electrons and baryons.
The photons were constantly interacting with the plasma through Thomson scattering.
As the universe expanded, adiabatic cooling (of which the cosmological redshift is an on-going symptom) caused the plasma to cool until it became favourable for electrons to combine with protons and form hydrogen atoms.