What were the elements that shortly appeared after the big bang?

Answer 1

The quark-gluon plasma that composes the universe cools until hadrons, including baryons such as protons and neutrons, can form. At approximately 1 second after the Big Bang neutrinos decouple and begin traveling freely through space. This cosmic neutrino background, while unlikely to ever be observed in detail, is analogous to the cosmic microwave background that was emitted much later. The majority of hadrons and anti-hadrons annihilate each other at the end of the hadron epoch, leaving leptons and anti-leptons dominating the mass of the universe. Approximately 10 seconds after the Big Bang the temperature of the universe falls to the point at which new lepton/anti-lepton pairs are no longer created and most leptons and anti-leptons are eliminated in annihilation reactions, leaving a small residue of leptons. [Taken from Wikipedia, see link below]

So, to summarize, matter and anti-matter condense out of the quark-gluon plasma, a cosmic neutrino background is created, most matter and anti-matter is annihilated.

Answer 2

A very dense ball of energy...but that's just where the fun begins.

Approximately 10^(-41) seconds after the Big Bang (literally an instant), Gravity became a unique force- that is, it split off from the Unified Force (there are four forces- Strong, Weak, Electromagnetic, and Gravity). It is believed that our 10-dimensional universe split into 4 (plus time) and 6 dimensions at this point, the latter becoming about 10^(-34) meters and essentially disappearing from view. A short while later, the Strong Force split off from the GUF (Grand Unified Force), leaving Gravity, Strong, and Electroweak forces.

A relatively while later the Electroweak split into the Weak and Electromagnetic forces. When each of the forces split off so did the particles that experience their effects. For example, there were no quarks nor hadrons until the Strong Force split and leptons were not unique until the Weak force split.

It is unsure of why gravity split so early and why it is so weak (notice how static electricity can overcome gravity and stick to your hand), but a thing called String Theory attempts to explain this via higher dimensions (hence the original 10 dimensions). This theory is incomplete as of 1/18/12. A physicist once said that String Theory (which made its debut in the 70s and 80s) is 21st century mathematics that landed in the 20th century. (For a bit of trivia about String Theory, it was found that every equationin physics regarding the forces can be derived from String Theory). Your question will be fully answered as soon as we solve the darned thing.

Answer 3

Quarks and leptons are produced immediately after the big bang.