Dear All
You are invited to attend a seminar on DYNAMICS OF SUPER-INFLATION IN LOOP QUANTUM COSMOLOGY by Dr Nunes, postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, University of Cambridge.
Day/Date: Friday, 22 August 2008
Time: 11.00am
Venue: USP Conference Room, Blk ADM, Level 7.
ABSTRACT:
We will be looking at the cosmological effects of small scale corrections that arise in Loop Quantum Cosmology (LQC). In particular, we will see how the Friedmann equation is modified under inverse volume and quadratic corrections. We will see that a positively curved universe can undergo a period of several expanding and contracting phases during which a scalar field is displaced in its potential and consequently establishing the initial conditions for standard slow-roll inflation.
We will also compute the power spectrum of the perturbed scalar field generated during the super-inflationary phases of the universe and show that it can be scale invariant and that the horizon problem is solved with only a few e-folds of super-inflationary expansion. Finally we will see that the tensor spectrum is strongly blue, which means that the abundance of gravitational waves, in these models, is strongly suppressd on the large scales.
The talk is purely phenomenological and knowledge of LQC is not necessary.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER:
Dr. Nunes is currently a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, U. Cambridge. He works in theoretical
cosmology, in particular, inflation, dark energy and phenomenology of string theory and loop quantum cosmology.
Obtained his first degree in Lisbon, in 1998, his PhD at University of Sussex, and held postdoctoral appointments were in Queen Mary University of London, and University of Minnesota.
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