Zenith Grant Awardee

Stephon Alexander

Haverford College

Co-Investigators

Abhay Ashtekar, <i>Pennsylvania State University</i><br>Martin Bojowald, <i>Pennsylvania State University</i>

Project Title

Foundational Questions in Cosmology and Quantum Gravity

Project Summary

This proposal requests support for research on five projects at the interface of cosmology, quantum field theory, quantum gravity and conceptual foundations of physics. The overall goal is to seek new physical and potentially observable effects by exploiting the tension between deep conceptual issues in fundamental theories. Specifically, we will analyze notions of time that can emerge in the cosmological context and their physical implications, study the possibility that the weak force and the observed violation of mirror symmetry in Nature may originate in quantum effects of gravity, explore the origin of the arrow of time, investigate how information can leak out of black holes, and analyze whether multiverses can naturally arise in quantum gravity evolutions. This research will be carried out by three PIs (Stephon Alexander, Abhay Ashtekar and Martin Bojowald) with the help of students and post-docs each of whom will spend 2 – 3 weeks on specific aspects of these projects.

Technical Abstract

This proposal requests support for research on five projects at the interface of cosmology, quantum field theory, quantum gravity and conceptual foundations of physics. The overall goal is to seek new physical and potentially observable effects by exploiting the tension between deep conceptual issues in fundamental theories. Specifically, we will explore the following issues: i) Unexpected implications of `internal' time one is naturally led to use in generally covariant theories; ii) The possibility of unifying the microscopic weak force with large scale cosmological evolution using a novel approach; iii) Fundamental problems associated with entropy and arrow of time in cosmological models in which the big bang singularity is resolved; iv) Explanations of why entropy is not lost in the black hole evaporation in space-time terms; and v) Whether multiverses can emerge dynamically in loop quantum gravity and, if so, how one can calculate the probabilities of their emergence from first principles. This research will be carried out by three PIs (Stephon Alexander, Abhay Ashtekar and Martin Bojowald) with the help of students and post-docs each of whom will spend 2 – 3 weeks on specific aspects of these projects.