Hamburg 2016 – scientific programme
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GR: Fachverband Gravitation und Relativitätstheorie
GR 9: Quantum Cosmology
GR 9.3: Talk
Thursday, March 3, 2016, 09:10–09:30, VMP6 HS A
A perfect bounce in quantum cosmology — •Steffen Gielen1 and Neil Turok2 — 1Theoretical Physics, Blackett Laboratory, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, United Kingdom — 2Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, Waterloo ON N2L 2Y5, Canada
We study the quantum cosmology of a universe with conformal matter comprising a perfect radiation fluid and a number of conformally coupled scalar fields. For FRW backgrounds, we are able to perform the path integral exactly; the evolution describes a "perfect bounce," in which the universe passes smoothly through the singularity. The Feynman path integral amplitude is precisely that of a relativistic oscillator, for which the scale factor of the universe is the time and the scalar fields are the spatial coordinates. We also study the quantum evolution of anisotropies (for a Bianchi I model) and of inhomogeneous perturbations, at linear and nonlinear order, viewed as a "scattering process" between incoming and outgoing asymptotic modes. We provide evidence for a semiclassical description in which all fields pass around the cosmological singularity along regular, complex classical paths.