Bangs, Bounces, Black Holes, and Bubbles: Where General Relativity Meets Cosmology

Date
May 11, 2017May 12, 2017
Location
PCTS, Jadwin Hall, Room 407

Details

Event Description

Organizers: Anna Ijjas & Paul Steinhardt, PCTS

The time is ripe for a closer interaction between theorists exploring cosmology and general relativity (GR). Cosmology drives GR to the extreme near the big-bang singularity, which is the biggest and most important unsolved problem in early-universe cosmology. Some of the leading issues being explored today include whether a cosmological bounce is possible, whether such a bounce can be non-singular, whether it is possible to quantum tunnel from a contracting state well approximated by classical GR to an expanding state well approximated by classical GR, what the implications of the BKL-behavior are and how a chaotic mixmaster collapse can be avoided to preserve/create a smooth and flat cosmological background before and after a bounce. For each of these issues concerning a cosmic singularity, there is a corresponding question about black hole singularities, providing a tight link between cosmology and GR.This program is designed to bring together theorists from the cosmology and GR communities and promote novel collaborations among them, with the aim of establishing a new active area of research at the intersection of the two subjects.