Copernicus Webinar and Colloquium Series

Europe/Zurich
Description

 

Dear colleagues,
 
We would like to invite you to take part in the upcoming 152nd Copernicus Webinar.
 
Time:               28th November, Tuesday, at 3pm CET (10 pm Beijing, 11 pm JST, 9am ET). 
 
 
Speaker:         Scott Watson (SyracuseUniversity)
 
 
Title:  Lingering Before Inflation
 
Abstract:

In this talk, we revisit motivation from String Theory for new phases of cosmology – prior to inflation. Cosmic inflation offers a causal way to predict initial conditions for the growth of structure and density fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background and large-scale structure formation. However, asymptotic de Sitter space possesses a past cosmological (physical) singularity implying the theory cannot be complete. In this talk, I will discuss how investigations into QCD led to an idea that could prevent the past singularity, or at least give a way to calculate predictions in real time on curved space-time backgrounds. This paradigm would lead to cosmologies that do not begin (Big Bang) or repeat (Ekpyrotic / Cyclic scenario) but instead begin from sitting around – a period of “lingering”, as first considered by Lemaître.

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Zoom link:
Meeting ID: 421 480 1692
Passcode: cosmology
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