APS Physics view of pre-inflation cosmology article

marcus
Science Advisor
Homework Helper
Gold Member
Dearly Missed
Messages
24,753
Reaction score
794
"APS Physics" view of pre-inflation cosmology article

The APS has an online periodical that publishes "Viewpoints" on current research, for instance http://physics.aps.org/articles/v5/142
is an interpretive explanatory viewpoint, written for non-specialists,
on the article by Agullo Ashtekar Nelson published last month in Physical Review Letters.

This is on geometry&matter fluctuations in the PRE-INFLATION era. Basically it extends the conventional inflation analysis back further in time, where the conventional analysis is not valid because it is set on a (singular) classical space-time.

There is also a write-up of the Agullo et al work in the January 2013 SciAm
by Davide Castelvecchi.

Here's the PRL article (they made it a "featured article" with free access)
http://physics.aps.org/featured-article-pdf/10.1103/PhysRevLett.109.251301
It is also available on arxiv, along with a 50 page paper giving technical detail on which the PRL Letter is based.
short PRL article preprint: http://arxiv.org/abs/1209.1609
50 page article: http://arxiv.org/abs/1211.1354
==quote 1211.1354==
An Extension of the Quantum Theory of Cosmological Perturbations to the Planck Era
Ivan Agullo, Abhay Ashtekar, William Nelson
(Submitted on 6 Nov 2012)
Cosmological perturbations are generally described by quantum fields on (curved but) classical space-times. While this strategy has a large domain of validity, it can not be justified in the quantum gravity era where curvature and matter densities are of Planck scale. Using techniques from loop quantum gravity, the standard theory of cosmological perturbations is extended to overcome this limitation. The new framework sharpens conceptual issues by distinguishing between the true and apparent trans-Planckian difficulties and provides sufficient conditions under which the true difficulties can be overcome within a quantum gravity theory. In a companion paper, this framework is applied to the standard inflationary model, with interesting implications to theory as well as observations.
Comments: 50 pages, no figures. This is first of the two detailed papers on which arXiv 1209.1609 (PRL at press) is based
==endquote==

It's nice to see pre-inflation cosmology becoming increasingly visible in science media.

In case anyone wants, here's the SciAm link:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/a...-einsteins-relativity-universes-first-moments
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I seem to notice a buildup of papers like this: Detecting single gravitons with quantum sensing. (OK, old one.) Toward graviton detection via photon-graviton quantum state conversion Is this akin to “we’re soon gonna put string theory to the test”, or are these legit? Mind, I’m not expecting anyone to read the papers and explain them to me, but if one of you educated people already have an opinion I’d like to hear it. If not please ignore me. EDIT: I strongly suspect it’s bunk but...
I'm trying to understand the relationship between the Higgs mechanism and the concept of inertia. The Higgs field gives fundamental particles their rest mass, but it doesn't seem to directly explain why a massive object resists acceleration (inertia). My question is: How does the Standard Model account for inertia? Is it simply taken as a given property of mass, or is there a deeper connection to the vacuum structure? Furthermore, how does the Higgs mechanism relate to broader concepts like...

Similar threads

Back
Top